MODERN THOUGHT 



AND THE 



CRISIS IN BELIEF 



¥L. M . M^ENLEY 



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Copyright }l^ 



CDPyRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE BALDWIN LECTURES, 1909 



MODERN THOUGHT AND THE 
CRISIS IN BELIEF 







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THE BALDWIN LECTURES, 1909 



MODERN THOUGHT AND THE 
CRISIS IN BELIEF 



\y ^BY 



R. M.^WENLEY 

t: 

D.Phil., Hon. LL.D. (Glas.), Sc.D., F.R.S. (Edin.), 
Hon. Litt.D. (Hobart) 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1909 

A/i rights reserved 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Tv/o CoDies Received 

FEB 21 ia09 

gf Copyriunt Entry _ 

CLASS O. XXc, No. 

COPY 3. 



Copyright, 1909, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published March, 19094 



J. 8. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



^ 






"La pensee semble d'abord n''etre que I'esquisse affaiblie 
des choses; elle est mieux : elle en est Piddalisation vivante, 
en voie de realisation." 

— Fouillee. 



" The historic personage 
Put by, leaves prominent the impulse of his age ; 
Truth sets aside speech, act, time, place, indeed, but brings 
Nakedly forward now the principle of things 
Highest and least." 

— Browning. 



" Und diess Geheimniss redete das Leben selber zu mir : 

' Siehe,' sprach es, ' ich bin Das, was sich immer selber liber- 

winden muss.' " 

— Nietzsche. 



ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDATION AND 

EXTRACT FROM THE DEED OF 

TRUST 

Having regard to the peculiar conditions at the 
State Universities, where students of all denomina- 
tions stand on an equal footing, and where, there- 
fore, no theological faculties can be erected, the 
Right Reverend Samuel Smith Harris, Bishop of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of 
Michigan, in 1885, executed a Deed of Trust with 
certain influential laymen of his diocese. This was 
one of the first steps in what is known as the Guild 
Movement, now widespread and still growing. 
The Guilds are representative of the various denom- 
inations, and, as a rule, maintain their own halls, 
with libraries, reading rooms, gymnasia, etc., as 
headquarters for their students, and as centres of 
religious activity supplementary to their local 
churches. Lectureships often form a part of their 
plan. Thus, as a result of Bishop Harris's efforts, 
Harris Hall was built and endowed, to be the head- 
quarters for all members and adherents of the 

vii 



Vlll ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDATION 

Protestant Episcopal Church who are teachers or 
students in the University of Michigan. The 
Hobart Guild was instituted to use and to govern 
the Hall. The Baldwin and Slocum Lectureships 
were founded, with adequate subventions, due also 
to Bishop Harris's enthusiasm. They are delivered 
in alternate years. 

The portion of the Deed aforesaid, relating to the 
Baldwin Lectures, runs as follows: — 

''Now, therefore, I, the said Samuel Smith 
Harris, Bishop as aforesaid, do hereby give, grant, 
and transfer to the said Henry P. Baldwin, Alonzo 
B. Palmer, Henry A. Hayden, Sidney D. Miller, 
and Henry P. Baldwin, 2d, Trustees as aforesaid, 
the said sum of ten thousand dollars to be invested 
in good and safe interest-bearing securities, the net 
income thereof to be paid and applied from time to 
time as hereinafter provided, the said sum and the 
income thereof to be held in trust for the following 
uses : — 

"i. The said fund shall be known as the En- 
dowment Fund of the Baldwin Lectures. 

"2. There shall be chosen annually by the 
Hobart Guild of the University of Michigan, upon 
the nomination of the Bishop of Michigan, a learned 
clergyman or other communicant of the Protestant 



ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDATION IX 

Episcopal Church, to deHver at Ann Arbor and 
under the auspices of the said Hobart Guild, be- 
tween the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels and 
the Feast of St. Thomas, in each year, not less than 
six nor more than eight lectures, for the Establish- 
ment and Defence of Christian Truth; the said lec- 
tures to be published in book form by Easter of 
the following year, and to be entitled 'The Baldwin 
Lectures'; and there shall be paid to the said lec- 
turer the income of the said endowment fund, upon 
the delivery of fifty copies of said lectures to the said 
Trustees or their successors; the said printed vol- 
umes to contain, as an extract from this instrument, 
or in condensed form, a statement of the object and 
conditions of this trust." 



PREFACE 

Speaking in the House of Commons several years 
ago, that eminent and devoted churchman, Lord 
Hugh Cecil, expressed himself as follows: ''On all 
sides there are signs of decay of the Faith. People 
do not go to church, or, if they go, it is for the sake 
of the music, or for some non-religious motive. The 
evidence is overwhelming that the doctrines of 
Christianity have passed into the region of doubt." 
Once more, the Bishop of Carlisle has affirmed: 
''There are, perhaps, few things, and certainly 
nothing of similar moment, about which men give 
themselves so little trouble, and take such little 
pains, as the ascertainment, by strict examination, 
of the foundations and the evidences of their reli- 
gion." Outspoken and weighty statements by re- 
sponsible persons seldom lack foundation in fact. 
Accordingly, in these Lectures, I have attempted a 
partial review of the situation, so far as my narrow 
limits permit. Thus, in Lecture I, I have drawn 
attention to the alterations that overtake reflective 
constructions of belief. In Lectures II-IV, I have 

xi 



XU PREFACE 

made an effort to summarize movements that justify 
Lord Hugh Cecil's declaration. But, as I have 
borne no part in the work of physical science and 
higher criticism, I am able only to indicate the pres- 
ent view from the conclusions of others. In Lec- 
tures V-VIII, I have essayed, in my own way, the 
examination suggested by the Bishop of Carlisle. 
I cannot pretend to expert familiarity with theology, 
so I have deemed it wiser to abandon this stand- 
point, represented most adequately by many others, 
and have confined myself to matters where I am 
more at home. 

It is obvious, to students at least, that we are 
passing through a stage of transition where hazards 
beset belief. Of course, I am well aware that a 
broad distinction survives between the "beliefs of 
the vulgar and of the learned," as they have been 
called. But, under the educational arrangements 
prevalent now, — and these Lectures are to hold 
them in special remembrance, — it tends to fade, 
with two results. On the one hand, some who deem 
themselves 'learned' hug the idea that religion has 
become a negligible quantity. Their learning has 
not matured enough to make manifest the deeps of 
our remanent ignorance. On the other hand, many 
are puzzled, often distressed beyond measure, by 



PREFACE Xlll 

the metamorphic process coincident with enquiry. 
They resent the stress placed upon natural piety, 
and so they blink the issue, to sore harm of the re- 
ligious cause; or, unappreciative of what knowledge 
has gleaned, they cling to belief of such a character 
that, under assault, it can scarce be distinguished 
from the despair of a last resort. These are sad 
hazards. 

It were useless, possibly dangerous, to keep the 
'vulgar' in ignorance of the ''wood, hay, stubble — 
man's work," and therefore subject to loss, especially 
as we still stand on the threshold of some scientific 
and historical studies, more particularly those 
destined to affect our views of the conditions and 
nature of self-consciousness, and of the precise 
environment whereout the New Testament and 
early Christianity sprang. It were cruel, possibly 
criminal, to keep the 'learned' in ignorance of "the 
things which cannot be shaken," for, in preoccupa- 
tion with corners of the garden, they are apt to miss 
a just estimate of their own general presuppositions. 
As a student, speaking in an academic community, I 
have tried to show why, and to indicate some reasons 
for doubting doubt that remains merely destruc- 
tive. At the same time, my readers must bear in 
mind that Lectures addressed to a general audience 



XIV PREFACE 

cannot be more than tentative. This ought to be 
realized especially in connexion with the purely 
illustrative uses to which I have put the ethical 
consciousness. 

Nobody knows so well as I the inadequacy of my 
equipment for this difficult task; and few can have 
had better reason to know how its prosecution calls 
down anathemas alike from defenders of ''the faith 
once delivered to the saints" — for whom religion 
has achieved finality — and from rationalists who, in 
their horror of the sympathetic fallacy, cherish the 
notion that technical research can accomplish a per- 
fect work. These I cannot hope to conciliate, much 
less to convince. Time, that tries all, must be their 
teacher. But for such as beheve that "the estab- 
lishment of Christian truth," rather than its apolo- 
getic defence or contemptuous dismissal, is an 
important part of the second Reformation imposed 
upon us by the contemporary course of science and 
scholarship, I trust I have touched some things 
worth further reflexion. 

In any event, I have no apology to offer for my 
view that religion is of primary importance to man- 
kind. Belief bears its recompenses, because our 
fragmental nature makes insistent demand for 
completion. 



PREFACE XV 

I extend cordial thanks to several eminent scholars 

who have taken the trouble to read portions of my 

manuscript, and to suggest improvements. They 

are not to be held responsible in any sense for my 

errors or my opinions. 

R. M. Wenley. 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I 

Sheaves on the Threshing-floor 
Introduction .... 



The New Attitude of Culture to Religion 
The Nature of Intellectual Constructions 
The Instability of Intellectual Constructions 



PAGE 
I 

I 

3 

II 

27 



LECTURE II 

The Waters of Meribah 41 

Supposition and Science ..... 46 
The Scientific Consciousness in its Methods and 

Conclusions 54 



LECTURE III 

Breaches of the House . 

The Historico-critical Movement 

1. Ancient History 

2. The Old Testament . 



81 

82 

100 

114 



LECTURE IV 

Humiliation in the Midst 

The Historico-critical Movement {cofiiinued) 

3. The New Testament ... 

4. Christian Syncretism . 

xvii 



140 

140 
141 

175 



XVlll CONTENTS 

LECTURE V 

PAGE 

The Preestablished Discord 190 

The Roots of Conflict in Experience . . • 194 
The Abstractions of Science and their Meaning; 

Consequent Discords ...... 200 

The Discord as it appears within Historical Science 221 
Man forced to seek Refuge in the Ethical Conscious- 
ness 230 

LECTURE VI 

The Adjournment of Well-being .... 232 

Religion and the Ethical Consciousness . . 233 

Teleology and Discontinuity . . . . . 237 

The Time-series and the Ethical Consciousness . 245 

Failure of the Ethical Consciousness to satisfy Man 251 

The Passage to Religion 256 



LECTURE VII 

The Penumbra of Belief 

Knowledge and Life 
The Mystic Element in Religion 
The Nature of Christian Conviction 
What think ye of Christ ? 

LECTURE VIII 



278 

278 
289 
297 
312 



The Valley of Blessing 324 

Religion under the Conditions of Experience . . 324 

Christianity as a Missionary Religion . . 325 

Christianity and Secular Polity . . . 332 

Christianity as a Process : Absoluteness and Change 344 

Conclusion 358 



MODERN THOUGHT AND THE 
CRISIS IN BELIEF 



MODERN THOUGHT AND THE 
CRISIS IN BELIEF 

LECTURE I 

SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 

The invitation of the Bishop and the Hobart 
Guild, caUing a layman to deliver these Lectures 
for the first time, can hardly pass without comment. 
Inevitably, I must cut a sorry figure by comparison 
with my eminent clerical predecessors. Yet, para- 
doxically, the very fact that a layman lacks pro- 
fessional bias may serve as a makeweight. In all 
professions the initiate tends to fall under the sway 
of certain conventions. Indeed, were this not so, 
professions as such would cease to exist. Thus, 
in dealing with professional subjects, the accredited 
member of the craft inclines to accept a distinct 
standpoint whereto he has grown, almost uncon- 
sciously, through long years of training and asso- 
ciation. Nay, the more he has earned the right to 
appear as an adequate representative, the further, 



2 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

as a rule, has this assimilation proceeded. I am 
unaware that the clergy are greater sinners in such 
respect than their brethren of the bar or the desk, 
the sword or the lancet, even if their pubHc func- 
tion, in preaching, render them a readier prey to 
facile criticism. For every profession develops its 
* system,' its 'form,' its 'ethics,' its what-not. 

In the circumstances inseparable from these Lec- 
tures, the tendency of the clerical 'system' might 
result, conceivably, in partial failure to distinguish 
between theology and religion, between creed and 
conduct, between the church and Christianity, or 
the like. So, once in a great while, it may prove 
refreshing, if perilous, to expose the lay mind, even 
with all its sins of feeble technique upon its head. 
Again, one passes no impertinent reflexion in say- 
ing that the clerical attitude towards religion is 
defensive, in large measure. Nay, we laity force 
this upon our ministers by our determination to 
hold them men of other flesh, of other mould, than 
ourselves. Accordingly, let us bear the blame, 
great or small, when we repeat the acute remark, 
"It is the mischief of the defensive method that the 
class of facts against which a man has made himself 
impregnable may be the very class of facts which it 
is his chief business to know." More than likely, 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 3 

your layman may have been placed midmost these 
very facts in his daily work. If not, he may recall 
the trite doctrine, that a spectator sometimes under- 
stands more of the fight than those who are in the 
thick of it. In any event, he can add at least, 
especially as concerns religion, that he suffers the 
same frailty with all his fellows; for he is the same 
sinner, the same subject of ceaseless craving for — 

" The light that never was on sea or land," 
the same wistful suppHant for — • 

" the wings of faith, to rise 
Within the veil, and . . . 
Possess the promised rest." 



It would be superfluous to adduce proofs of the 
statement that, in a single generation, the position 
of English-speaking folk towards 'Christian truth' 
has undergone large displacement. So much is 
quite sure. Moreover, one must remark, not merely 
that this change continues, but rather that its in- 
fluence affects wider and wider circles. It is no 
part of my aim meanwhile to deploy reasons for 
the modification. But one fact, slurred too often 
just now, merits comment. Obviously enough, 
man's estimate even of the deepest things of life 



4 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

alters in face of new knowledge of nature, espe- 
cially of organisms, brute and human. Darwin 
was the — 

" Calm priest of a tremendous oracle." 

Yet, after all, the world, with its objects, vital or 
non-vital, maintains a certain aloofness from those 
ethical, aesthetic, and religious insights that serve at 
once to differentiate man and to set his distinctive 
problems. No amount of sophistication suffices to 
obliterate the contrast between things, or stable 
bodies, in the objective realm, and processes, or 
inconstant successions, in the subjective sphere. 
Despite their manifold, indelible relations, they re- 
main two orders, amenable, perhaps, to similar 
methods of research, but always so amenable in 
different measure and with very contrasted degrees 
of success. 

We shall not be surprised to learn, then, that 
''transvaluation of values" in matters religious must 
stand to the account rather of historical than of 
biological or physical investigation. Language and 
literature, conduct and institutions, custom and 
myth, society and law, worship and dogma, — these, 
with their kind, together constitute man's peculiar 
expression of his own nature. Thus, fresh results 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 5 

in anthropology, ethics, comparative religion, criti- 
cism, jurisprudence, ethnic psychology, and the 
history of civihzation affect our estimates of the 
significance, sweep, and implications of our common 
humanity as no hypotheses concerning bodies, or 
even the body, ever can. Being human, — • 

"Some thought imprisons us; we set about 
To bring the world within the woven spell." 

Now, Germany was the mother-land of these fateful 
'human' sciences. There they had origin, grew, 
took definite shape, and found acceptance for nigh 
a century ere they penetrated the English world. 
Echoes were wafted overseas, indeed. But Coleridge 
and Carlyle, Emerson and Browning prophesied in 
the upper air to a stiff-necked generation. Their 
early audience w^ould have little or none of them. 
"'Pauline,' a piece of pure bewilderment," said the 
London Athenceum, so late as 1833; and this was 
sixty- six years after Herder, "the gatekeeper of the 
nineteenth century," had published his epoch-mak- 
ing "Fragmente." Nay, a quarter century later, 
the greatest English scholar of the age, a man of 
monumental learning, seems to stay stranded out- 
side the main current of European thought. For 
Whewell, in the third edition of his "History of the 



6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Inductive Sciences" (1858), the enormous change' 
wrought by Kant seventy-seven years before might 
as well not have taken place. Its real meaning is 
a mere vagrom rumour. Small wonder, then, that 
misrepresentation or, as oftener, sheer ignorance 
tangled the fundamental tendencies. Accordingly, 
Germany arrived at a gradual appreciation of the 
transitive principles peculiar to nineteenth- century 
thought by a slow, cumulative process, beginning 
with Winckelmann and Lessing about 1760; pass- 
ing through the several stages of Kant, Herder, 
Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, and the Romantics; 
coming finally io clear consciousness in Hegel, and 
that historico-critical upheaval for which he, more 
than any other single force, must be given credit. 
On the contrary, Great Britain and the United States 
enjoyed no such period of formative transition. For, 
all things considered, the movement burst upon 
them in full panoply of power during the decade 
1 865-1 87 5. Further, as if to accentuate the stress, 
it synchronized with the home-thrusting dispute 
over the Darwinian theory, and this at a moment 
when the essential identity of the two schemes, in 
ultimate attitude towards the universe, was not 
apparent. As always, controversy clouded the main 
issues at the outset. On the other hand, since about 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 7 

1890 shouts of battle have diminished, party cries 
and nicknames have found their due level, a process 
of assimilation has wrought results in some measure. 
We shall realize this more in detail later. Mean- 
while, suffice it to say that we can now recognize the 
reason why our intellectual atmosphere has not been 
interpenetrated by these constructive ideas even yet. 
Astonishing darkness prevails in certain quarters, 
where illumination might be expected, while miscon- 
ceptions so strange that one is forced to conclude 
them undesigned to mislead, still provide pitiful 
commentary. Nevertheless, we are bound to re- 
member, in all charity, that when the waters of 
evolution rose and the floods of criticism descended 
at one fell swoop, dire shipwreck of their most holy 
things seemed imminent to many. But, in any case, 
perspective has altered. For example, it were im- 
possible to-day that the hue and cry after the "Ves- 
tiges of the Natural History of Creation" (1844) 
should recur over a similar book. As Lamarck 
said, browbeaten by his generation, "It is better 
that a truth once perceived should struggle a long 
time to obtain attention than that everything the 
ardent imagination of man produces should be easily 
accepted." ^ 

^ Philosophie Zoologique, p. 15. 



8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

At this point let us pause to remind ourselves 
sharply of some phrases used above. 'New know- 
ledge of nature/ 'fresh results in criticism,' 'hu- 
man sciences,' 'dispute over the Darwinian theory,' 
and so forth. What do they imply? Or, shifting 
the angle slightly. Does the average man possess 
much lore concerning these things? The answer 
is. They imply that religion involves an important 
intellectual element, and that the average man, just 
on account of his ignorance, may find himself at the 
mercy of this element, to his comfort, or, as so often, 
to his deep distress. By way of introduction, I pro- 
pose to consider the grave problems lurking here. 

An obvious course would be to set out from that 
copy-book platitude, the distinction between religion 
and theology. According to this view, the two 9,re 
related as antecedent and consequent. The prius 
of theology is religion; for theology represents the 
reaction of reason upon inexpressible aspirations 
that flow from the ' heart.' Or, once more, theology 
broods among the shadows of abstraction, while 
religion wells up naturally in the free manifestation 
of faith. Now, admitting that such contrasts may 
serve a purpose sometimes, it nevertheless remains 
true that they are too naive. No one needs to 
emphasize the evident differences between theory 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 9 

and practice, logic and life, the state and the citizen, 
pure and applied science; they float on the surface, 
naked and unashamed. Meaning attaches to them 
as aspects of a single whole, never as mutually ex- 
clusive facts. They appear as incidents of a dia- 
lectic movement, the one implies the other, and the 
problem roots in the nature of the connexion, never 
in the bare contrast. Whatever might be said of 
origins, we are unable to seek light in the darkness 
of the past; religion and theology so intertwine 
now that jejune and odious comparisons preclude 
any conclusion. To escape the consequent impasse 
another method must prevail. Our sole resource 
lies in an appeal to concrete experience. Religion 
cannot exist apart from some view of its necessary 
conditions, and these belong to human nature. 

"Ein Traum, ein Traum ist unser Leben 

Auf Erden hier; 
Wie schatten auf den Wogen schweben 

Und schwinden wir; 
Und messen uns're tragen Tritte 

Nach Raum und Zeit, 
Und sind, und wissen's nicht, in Mitte 

Der Ewigkeit !" 

Taken at its best, knowledge about man leaves 
much unknown and, very likely, unsuspected. We 
cannot tell how we came by our perception of space, 



lO MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

with its wonderful localization of objects, surely a 
familiar affair. We know little about the brain, less 
about its intimate functioning as the organ of con- 
sciousness, nothing of the ultimate relation between 
the two; while our acquaintance with consciousness 
itself is lapped everywhere by the mighty ocean of 
ignorance. In the nature of the case, our inferences 
from the ascertained phenomena present themselves 
synoptically. That is to say, we must rest satisfied 
with results in gross, numerous factors being beyond 
reach meantime. Yet, even so, some points almost 
shout their presence. The reflective mind, at least, 
seizes them immediately. For example, beyond 
perad venture man's distinctive fate centres in his 
double life, — on the one hand, an animal moved 
to hunger and lust and cruelty, on the other, a sub- 
ject of aspirations whereby he serves himself a little 
lower than the angels. The eternal conflict between 
these two sets all his problems, originates all his 
fears and sufferings, but at the same time baptizes 
him into all opportunity. At his sweet pleasure he 
can ''idealize himself into dirt" with — 

"a scrofulous French novel 
On grey paper with blunt type," 

or into devilry, — 

"Squat like a toad, close to the ear of Eve;" 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR II 

anon, led by — 

"The Star of the unconquerable will," 

he may vault time and space, — 

"Pouring heaven into this shut house of life." 

Of a truth, then, we men grasp keys to most varied 
universes. These universes, in turn, together hold 
the secret of the problem now under examination. 
Accordingly, the question comes to be, (i) What 
import are we to attach to the term ' universe ' ; 
and (2) What 'universes' emerge if appeal be taken 
to experience? 

(i) In the present connexion, formidable although 
it may seem, the word 'universe' need invoke no 
serious terrors. On the contrary, indeed, it is a sim- 
ple commonplace. For instance, we declare, with 
perfect truth, that the American and the Englishman 
live in different ' universes.' Historical traditions, 
political organization, and social relationships dif- 
ferentiate their respective estimates of life. To the 
one a title imports less than nothing, to the other it 
carries a clear conventional value ; to the one owner- 
ship of land implies little, on the other it bestows a 
distinct social status; the one conceives that money 
can effect almost anything, the other is well aware 
that some things, attractive to him, cannot be 



12 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

purchased. Again, take men in the same society. 
Contrast the successful merchant with the productive 
scholar. To the former the career of the latter 
spells failure — it does not pay ; to the latter the 
career of the former misses full flavour — it does 
not pay in the right way, for it sacrifices the man to 
the bare pursuit. In a word, one of the most familiar 
facts of life finds illustration in the universal ten- 
dency to rate the same things differently, and by 
consequence to judge human affairs from divergent 
standpoints. The influences which, in sum, pro- 
duce and maintain such phenomena we call a 'uni- 
verse,' because it is the kind of totality forming the 
customary world wherein a man seeks his spiritual 
adventures. There he finds at once his aims and 
his motives. Anyone who cares to study, say, the 
proverbs of various peoples will grasp this immedi- 
ately; opposed types of 'universe' are embodied in 
the wise saws of the folk. 

Dropping these manifest comparisons, the real 
problem appears. If, on analysis, it result that 
mankind tends naturally, on the whole and without 
distinction of time or place, to reveal the occupancy 
of certain 'universes,' then our enquiry will have 
reached some conclusion. 

(2) Luckily, Nature lends such efficient aid here 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 1 3 

that no recondite process need ensue. For, whatever 
his limitations, every human being admits that his 
life presents two insistent aspects, neither of them 
to be escaped or palHated in serious measure. For 
better or worse, all occupy a physical and a psy- 
chical 'universe.' The contrast between things and 
thoughts forms the most evident, yet profoundest, 
occurrence in life. No one has the slightest diffi- 
culty in recognizing it, all assume it in the simplest 
functions and arrangements of the daily round. 
But the terms 'physical' and 'psychical' represent 
vast complexes which, to a certain extent, we not 
only can and do, but even must analyze. When I 
kick a stone or a man, I do not anticipate precisely 
identical reactions. We are prone to kick any stone, 
we have been known to select our man. Again, 
when I talk to a friend, or ponder some mighty 
achievement in history, I am perfectly aware of 
the great difference between the two events. Here, 
once more. Nature aids us by the very obviousness 
of her ways. Just as experience splits itself, with- 
out any effort on our part, into the 'physical' and 
the 'psychical,' so these subdivisions fissure in turn, 
and after equally spontaneous fashion. The 'phys- 
ical ' presents two unmistakable aspects, — things 
and living things, especially our own bodies. In 



14 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

like manner, the 'psychical' hives off into self and 
other selves, the former dwelling almost breathlessly 
upon its possible future here and hereafter, the latter 
entrancing by their multitudinous past and puzzling 
present. 

These four 'universes' envelop man at every 
moment. Negatively, he cannot flee from any one 
of them; positively, he may enter any one at will, 
and may mould his career in it more fully than in 
the rest. They are, then: (a) things, from the 
farthest star to the newest manufactured article; 
(b) living things, from the simplest unicellular 
organism to that organic community, amazing in its 
involution, known as the human body; (c) other 
selves, from naked savages, the prey of natural 
forces, to strangely intertwined contemporary socie- 
ties who harness wind and steam and electricity 
and ether so that they obey them; from wretched 
barbarians, whose idols are placated by unspeak- 
able tortures, to Christian saints anxious to pour 
out their all if haply the reign of Jesus may advantage 
by never so little; {d) self, from the vague time it 
could say ' I ' to those memorable moments when it 
thrills, or falters, or weeps over the — 

"obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things . . . 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 1 5 

Blank misgivings of a Creature 

Moving about in worlds not realized, 

High instincts before which our mortal Nature 

Did tremble like a thing surprised." 

Our psychological organization is so contrived that 
it rives the universal into these fractions, and con- 
tinues thereafter under the main rule of one or 
another; consequently, the indivisible reality secludes 
itself afar. Here we meet the recurrent mystery of 
the One and the Many, an enigma since the oldest 
days of Hindustan and Greece. Yearning after 
the One, men are fated to work out their salvation 
in such a scramble of competitive aims that the task 
of unification seems hopeless or impracticable. 

"By the watercourses of Reuben 
There were great resolves of heart." 

Plainly enough, this entire analysis proceeds from 
an intellectual reaction upon ordinary experience. 
Principles of division are involved, and therefore 
the operation of more or less extensive knowledge, 
based on observation, attention, and reflexion. 
Even the fragmentary views of current small-talk 
presuppose no less. Now, as Darwin said, '*no one 
can be a good observer, unless he is an active theo- 
rizer." ^ In other words, facts and circumstances 

^ Life and Letters, vol. i, p. 126. 



1 6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 



fail to reveal their true significance — or any sig- 
nificance, for that matter — till arrangement over- 
takes them. They demand a setting. A main vice 
of popular thought issues from the tendency to 
suppose that interpretations illuminating on one 
level of experience suffice equally for any. Nay, one 
may go so far as to declare that many difficulties 
vexatious to Christians now, whether pro or con 
some fundamental questions so called, originate in 
just this loose procedure. When subjected to criti- 
cism, they disappear or assume an altered aspect. 
Consequences of mental refraction, their relation 
to religion turns out more or less dubious. 

"We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; 
In feelings, not in figures on a dial. 
We should count time by heart -throbs. He most lives 
"UTio thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best." 

At the risk of intruding dull or difficult matters, let 
me try to illustrate the situation. The plan may 
serve to clear our minds of cant. 

Although the universe as a whole forms a single 
unity, differentiation fills out our fleeting moments. 
Man, for example, can be viewed as a machine or as 
a 'living soul,' or as any one of a dozen things inter- 
mediate between these extremes. But it is plain 
that the mechanical factor functions in a subordinate 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 1 7 

fashion when we emphasize the 'living soul' aspect. 
While present necessarily, it does not determine 
exclusively the treatment of the problem. And this 
familiar subordination of some differences appears 
characteristically when the constructions of know- 
ledge come in question. The thinker or observer 
never sidles up to objects in a merely receptive 
frame of mind. The ideas he employs, even in 
abstract processes, contain principles of direction; 
the analysis, that is, proceeds with reference to an 
end, and struggle as he may, contributes to the 
end, moulds it accordingly. The method of ap- 
proach cannot but be normative. A pure external 
relation of subject to object is pure nonsense. Even 
in theory we cannot view the two as if they stood 
side by side like bits of china on a shelf, because they 
never so present themselves in fact. A transitive 
process operates invariably from the side of mind. 
The simplest way to realize this is to take examples. 
One instance from each of the four ' universes ' noted 
above may suffice. To avoid the easy objection, 
that I am preparing the ground, I have chosen quite 
at random, and have allowed others to speak pur- 
posely. 

(a) The ^ universe^ of things. ''When a railway 
carriage is running on a straight piece of road, we 



1 8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

become unconscious of the motion unless we look 
at external bodies; but we detect at once any 
sudden change of speed. If the motion of the 
train be checked by a sudden application of the 
brake, their inertia (which really maintains their 
motion) appears to urge the passengers forwards. 
A sudden starting of the train produces the opposite 
effect. While the steady motion continues, a con- 
jurer can keep a number of balls in the air just as 
easily as if the carriage were at rest. But these 
things need not surprise us. Our rooms are always 
like perfect railway carriages in respect of their 
absolutely smooth, but very rapid, motion round 
the earth's axis. The whole earth itself is flying 
in its orbit at the rate of a million and a half miles 
per day ; yet we should have known nothing of this 
motion had our globe been perpetually clouded 
over like Jupiter. The whole solar system is travel- 
ling with great speed among the fixed stars, but we 
know of the fact only from the minutely accurate 
observations of astronomers, aided by all the re- 
sources of the Theory of Probabilities.^^ ^ 

Here we have what logicians call crucial instances. 
But, evidently, the crux, or sign-post, is dictated, as 
it were, by the intellectual attitude of the observer. 

^ Properties of Matter, P. G. Tait, pp. 95-96 (2d ed.). 



SHEAVES ON THE THEESHING-FLOOR I9 

Tait proceeded on the doctrine of inertia laid down 
in Newton's first Law of Motion. This, once more, 
lies embedded in Newton's third Definition of Force. 
"The vis inerticB of matter is a power of resisting, by 
which every body, so far as in it lies, perseveres in 
its state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight 
line." Now, all these propositions are controlled 
by mental refraction. They represent abstractions 
from experience, possible only to a being endowed 
as man is. Within the sphere of things they apply 
perfectly, nay, can be made the basis of further 
interpretation. Professor Mach, for instance, would 
combine Newton's Definition and Law in a fresh 
and, as he conceives, more concrete statement. 
"Bodies set opposite each other induce in each 
other, under certain circumstances to be specified 
by experimental physics, contrary accelerations in 
the direction of their line of junction." ^ Excellent, 
I suppose, in the realm of experimental physics, but 
what meaning has it when carried over into the 
fields of morals or religion ? The clew serves within 
the definite range of experience whence it came. 
In the psychological maze it leads nowhere. 

{h) The ^ universe^ of living things. Here we 
may avail ourselves of a case stated by Mr. xA.lfred 

^ The Science of Mechanics, p. 243 (Eng. trans., 2d ed.). 



20 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Russel Wallace. It offers an admirable illustration 
of the inevitable tendency of theory to suggest reliable 
meaning, to hint the end in the means. 

*' Among the numerous applications of the Dar- 
winian theory in the interpretation of the complex 
phenomena presented by the organic world, none 
have been more successful, or are more interesting, 
than those which deal with the colours of animals 
and plants. To the older school of naturalists 
colour was a trivial character, eminently unstable 
and untrustworthy in the determination of species; 
and it appears to have, in most cases, no use or 
meaning to the objects which displayed it. . . . 
But the researches of Mr. Darwin totally changed 
our point of view in this matter. He showed clearly 
that some of the colours of animals are useful, some 
hurtful to them. . . . That the colours and mark- 
ings of animals have been acquired under the funda- 
mental law of utility, is indicated by a general fact 
which has received very little attention. As a rule, 
colour and marking are constant in each species of 
wild animal, while, in almost every domesticated 
animal, there arises great variability. We see this 
in our horses and cattle, our dogs and cats, our 
pigeons and poultry. Now, the essential difference 
between the conditions of life of domesticated and 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 21 

wild animals is, that the former are protected by 
man, while the latter have to protect themselves. 
The extreme variations in colour that immediately 
arise under domestication indicate a tendency to 
vary in this way, and the occasional occurrence of 
white or piebald, or other exceptionally coloured 
individuals of many species in a state of nature 
shows that this tendency exists there also; and, as 
these exceptionally coloured individuals rarely or 
never increase, there must be some constant power 
at work to keep it in check." ^ 

Just so. The active element here is the intel- 
lectual, for the simple reason that its predominance 
alone guarantees an explanatory synthesis. But the 
categories employed possess no more than analogical 
value in ethics, say, while in numerous aspects of 
experience they avail not at all. Suppose one were 
to employ them to explain the ecclesiastical colours 
proper to the seasons of the Christian year! 

(c) The ^universe'' of other selves. A common 
custom, more honoured in the breach than in the 
observance, according to Hamlet, may serve our 
purpose here. 

"That one man should drink with another was 
regarded by our forefathers as a more sacred symbol 

^Darwinism, pp. 187, 188-190 (London, 1889). 



22 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of brotherhood even than the sitting at meat to- 
gether. This belief was derived, in part, from the 
impression made by the stimulating effect of the 
wine, mead, etc., whose intoxicating properties have 
led to their choice by all peoples at all times for 
ceremonial purposes. In part, however, the idea 
of the inspiriting draught is associated with that of 
the blood, universally considered by primitive man 
to be the seat of the vital forces. He who drinks the 
blood of an enemy takes to himself the dead man's 
strength; he who exchanges a drop of blood with a 
friend becomes thereby his blood-relation, as if a 
son of the same mother. ... But as the age grew 
milder, the symbolism of a draught from the same 
cup took the place of the original ceremony. . . . 
Soon the draught of brotherhood extended its range 
beyond the individual; it became an emblem of 
the union of host and invited guests, the cup travel- 
ling from hand to hand at the common meal. So 
the symbol reduces, first of all, to a simple sign of 
friendship, and finally comes to be a mere expression 
of social attention. When the cup ceased to pass 
from mouth to mouth, and the greater luxury of 
the time gave each guest his own drinking glass, the 
common draught from the same bowl was indicated 
by the touching of glasses, and the draught of 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 23 

brotherhood between two comrades had degenerated 
into the modern toast." ^ 

But, plainly, apart from a point of view, sugges- 
tions of this sort would be impossible. In the time 
of Newton they never occurred to a thinker even of 
his genius, as his commonplaces on prophecy, that 
elicited Voltaire's sneer, serve to show.^ What point 
of view, then? Let Wundt reply himself. 

"Every phase of our modern life is permeated 
with usages that have survived from long-forgotten 
cults. . . . Among them, too, are many fossilized 
forms, the petrified remains of once living actions, 
which owe their preservation simply and solely 
to that vis inerticB which is as characteristic of our 
ideas as it is of our material bodies. Now if we 
consider the bare results of these transformations, 
without reference to their historical past, we may 
easily be misled into looking for their explanation 
within the circle of our present experience, and sub- 
stituting the aims which they do or might subserve 
to-day for the true causes of their origination. But 

* Ethics, W. Wundt, vol. 1, pp. 143-144 (Eng. trans.). 

^ See his Observations upon the Prophecies of Holy Writ, par- 
ticularly the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John 
(in vol. V of Isaaci Newtoni Opera qua exstant omnia (1779-1785); 
separately printed in 1733 and, with notes by P. Borthwick, in 
1831. The edition of 1733 may be procured still). 



24 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in doing this we should be forgetting a law that is 
of the very highest importance in all mental, but 
especially in moral, development : the law that man- 
kind is prepared for the adoption of new ends of 
life by modes of conduct already existent, but pri- 
marily adapted to other ends. . . . The tendency 
of custom to live on in new forms after the decay 
of its original contents paves the way for the origina- 
tion of the most varied purposes. And if, in the 
last resort, it is a moral development that secures 
the greatest advantages from this law of persistence 
in the midst of change, credit is not therefore to be 
given to the law, but only to the forces of which 
that moral development is the expression." ^ 

Here, once more, the theory lays down the lines 
of evaluation. And because it deals with the 
* universe' of human psychology, its possible appli- 
cation in the sphere of religion becomes apparent 
on the face of it. 

id) The 'universe^ of self. No man ever left a 
starker self-revelation than Marcus Aurelius. Let 
us listen to one of his naked confidences, meant for 
his own eye alone. 

" You consist of three parts — body, breath, and 
mind. The first two are yours, to the extent of 

* Ethics, W. Wundt, vol. i, pp. 139-140. 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 25 

requiring your care : the third only is properly your 
own. Now if you separate from your true self — ■ 
your understanding — all that others do or say, all 
that you have yourself done or said, all that perturbs 
you for the future, all that belongs to your material 
shell or vital breath and lies outside your own control, 
all finally that sweeps past you in the swirl of cir- 
cumstance, if thus exempting and clearing your 
mind-faculty from the play of destiny, you enable 
it to live free and unrestricted, doing what is just, 
willing what befalls, and saying what is true, — if, 
I say, you thus separate from your Inner Self the 
outer ties and attachments, the influences of time 
past and time to come, and so make yourself, in the 
language of Empedocles — 

"A rounded sphere, poised in rotating rest;" 

and train yourself to live in what alone is life — the 
present — then you will be able, for life's remainder 
and till death, to live on constant to the deity within, 
unperturbed, ingenuous, serene." ^ 

A modem would not put it thus, because his out- 
look involves a widely contrasted mental attitude, 
based upon many new presuppositions. The em- 
peror's cross-examination of self was conducted in 
the light of later Stoic theory, and within the ethico- 

* Book xii, 3 (the translation is Kendall's). 



26 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

temperamental perspective peculiar to a Roman of 
the highest official class in that age. The value and 
importance of the facts could not but be rated by 
reference to this transitive rational standpoint. The 
tenour of the passage transcribed renders it unneces- 
sary to explain why, with Marcus Aurelius, Stoicism 
had ceased to be a philosophy and had transformed 
itself into something hardly distinguishable from 
religious aspiration. 

Again, the subtle and pervasive influence of man's 
inherited and acquired mental prepossessions con- 
tinues ascendant among the most fearless and 
capable contemporary thinkers. Moreover, the fact 
that the vast majority remain quite unaware of its 
enormous directive power, indeed, often deny it 
angrily, serves but to confirm its sway. Nobody 
would suspect Huxley, for instance, of treachery to 
science, rather his devotion displayed itself in a 
temper almost fierce. Nevertheless, did he not say 
of mathematics, — the servant of all experimental 
science as of many biological and sociological in- 
vestigations, — it "is that study that knows nothing 
of observation, nothing of induction, nothing of 
experiment, nothing of causation?" Perfectly true, 
no doubt; and yet, thanks to Huxley's very intel- 
lectual passion, how far his irony — 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 27 

"fails from truth by every stale-meant word 
Half -wantonly meeting the times' demand." 

I should not have troubled you with these far- 
flung illustrations unless I had intended them to 
hint a definite inference. It is this. The intel- 
lectual factor in our experience even of the com- 
monest things exhibits instability. Nature — 

"speaks 
A various language" 

as she passes from star-swirl to mountain-peak, from 
mite to man. 

"Black spirits and white, 
Red spirits and grey," 

is poetry or gibberish, as you please, never empirical 
fact. But so is — 

"Only the actions of the just 
Smell sweet and blossom in the dust." 

Thus, when we want to be perfectly clear intellectu- 
ally, we discover at once that judgements luminous 
m some spheres produce darkness visible in others. 
Accordingly, we switch our mental currents, alter- 
nating from the useless or even baleful to the appo- 
site, as the context demands. Now, what is thus 
true of individual experience in its several contem- 
poraneous fields, holds also of genetic experience 



28 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

when regarded in the light of its history. For us 
to-day, the legend of the nymph Echo, who pined 
away for love of Narcissus, till she faded to a mere 
voice, excites incredulity or, mayhap, arouses laugh- 
ter, — we feel inclined irresistibly to recall the 
famous smile of the Cheshire Cat ! Our woods are 
haunted no longer by Dryads and Hamadryads; to 
ask us to order our lives as if this delectable com- 
panionship still obtained, were absurd. Similarly, 
the psychological perspective necessary for St. 
Francis's preaching to the birds, or for Luther's 
ink-pot lunge at the devil, has disappeared. In a 
word, we regard such fables from another angle. 
So, just as we cannot put a price on tears, or tell 
the colour of love, we fail to explain blighted harvests 
by cold winds sent from the interior of Jotunheim 
by the Hrimthurses; meteorology has altered all 
this. In face of ethics, and sociology, and eco- 
nomics, we no longer seek counsels of perfection 
from the Norns. And yet, transformed completely 
as these intellectual outlooks are, our spiritual thrust 
remains very much as it always was. With his 
customary penetration, Jesus expressed this in that 
memorable answer to the Pharisees, when they 
advised him to flee from Herod. ''And he said unto 
them, Go and say to that fox. Behold, I cast out 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 29 

demons and perform cures to-day and to-morrow, 
and the third day I am perfected. Howbeit I must 
go on my way to-day and to-morrow and the day 
following: for it cannot be that a prophet perish 
out of Jerusalem." ^ Some experiences must needs 
be lived, knowledge cannot satisfy their passion. 
Others submit to logical constructions — causation, 
for instance. And the former, despite their elusive 
quality, seem to possess the power to bring us into 
contact with such changeless, stable states as our 
poor human nature prefigures. Intellectually, man 
has ever walked to-day, and to-morrow, and the day 
following; nevertheless, in the deepest things of his 
spirit, it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jeru- 
salem; if he perish there, men will appropriate his 
message preeminently. 

But paradox supervenes here. Suppose we grant 
(although it makes no vital difference to the argu- 
ment) that the insights of a Gotama or a Jesus are 
always embodied intellectually, by them as by their 
disciples. It would thus appear that the primary 
depends upon the secondary for its transmission or 
maintenance, and in relative degree becomes second- 
ary itself. I am unable to rest in this view. The 
paradox seems capable of resolution. For, the con- 

* Luke xiii. 32-33. 



30 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ceptual presentation of this, as of everything else, 
cannot but be called symbolic. And the root of 
numerous difficulties, as of endless religious con- 
troversy, lies embedded in the constant tendency to 
deal with the token as if it were the thing betokened. 
The two patch up peace continually on terms det- 
rimental to the one or the other; consequently, 
they have waged, and wage now, an unbroken, 
stern struggle. As the intellect presses forward to 
sit in judgement, life shakes itself free and demands 
justification. "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, 
when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, 
shall ye worship the Father." ^ In the profoundest 
sense, this hour never is, but always is to be. And 
why? Because religion involves elements that elude, 
not merely knowledge, but even the set purpose of the 
men who, at any given moment, happen to have 
formulated it. Or, in philosophical language, its 
ultimate character is dialectical. To wit ; its constitu- 
tive process is of such texture that the intellect cannot 
dictate its truth, or force it to abide in dependence 
on this or the other precise scheme. As the intellect 
passes the religious material through its medium, 
a transformation occurs which inevitably starts fur- 
ther transformations from time to time. The quod 

John iv. 21. 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 3 1 

semper, quod ubique, et quod ah omnibus, so far as it 
can be expressed propositionally, possesses, in the 
very nature of the case, a local habitation and a name. 
For, the tension of the complete manhood, so typical 
of religion, cannot be reproduced by any species of 
intellectual alchemy. The explicitness of logic, say, 
necessarily removes one from the ' universe ' of religion 
to a region that may turn out of a far different sort. 
In brief, as knowledge clarifies the religious con- 
sciousness, it fails proportionately to exhaust it. 
So, doubt, or at any rate enquiry, finds due oppor- 
tunity. The slighted portions, as it were, reappear 
over and over again, with an imperative demand 
that intellect abate its toll. Moreover, this process 
consists in no appeal to sentiment, to feeling, or to 
some vague belief in vaguer eventualities, as many 
neurotic or credulous folk seem to suppose. Rather 
is it a reference to facts that admit of no trifling. 
The less must face a new triangulation of the greater, 
in order to correct its partial computations. For, 
clearly enough, the abstractions charmed by know- 
ledge from life fall short of the actual fact. Even 
the most general, and therefore the most true, ' law 
of nature' never applied, as formulated, in every 
observed case. How much more, then, the poet 
hits the truth, when he writes, — 



32 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

**I for an hour have grasp'd the great insight . . . 
A system, self-containment which is beauty, 
The beauty that my creed hath wholly missed." 

Thus, when we carry the question of 'universes,' 
with their evaluations and systematic prescriptions, 
into the traffic between knowledge and religion, we 
are bound to admit that the latter supplies the pos- 
tulate. Of course, it is as impossible to separate 
religion from conscious research and reflexion re- 
garding its nature as to talk of a spiritual reality 
out of all relation to the chemico-physical world 
of our habitation. Notwithstanding, as matter of 
soberest fact, this blind, mechanical, uniform earth 
does contain the aspirations and plans of humane 
beings. For us, morals, and art, and religion are 
live things at least as potent as heat, and chemical 
affinity, and cellular change. No one enjoys a mo- 
nopoly of necessity more than any other. For, an 
isolated necessity, a necessity that fails to square 
with others incident to the same unity, were the 
purest moonshine. Accordingly, as intellectual judge- 
ments refract now this, now that aspect of our 
inconceivably complex life, readjustments become 
imperative, and such experiences as religion receive 
novel, often unexpected, interpretations, even although 
the fundamental ' stuff ' remain identical. Remem- 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 33 

bering all this, I think we shall have laid hold upon 

a clew that may serve to solve the maze surrounding 

certain contemporary difficulties, even if, as we must 

recognize quite frankly, our human nature stands, 

as ever, — 

"well-nigh vocal with 
The insight of this tragedy of mute 
Omnipotence." 

Nor does the story cease here. As thinkers have 
shown often, men are mastered by an ineradicable 
tendency to express the ' spiritual ' and psychological 
in terms of the ' material ' and sensuous. In its elabo- 
ration upon Hfe, knowledge at once sjnicopates and 
specifies by the use of images. The process serves 
to throw light upon our condition, because it exhibits, 
even when it neglects to emphasize, hmitations bound 
up with our humanity. A cardinal example of this 
procedure happens to have occurred, and to have 
maintained itself more or less intact, midmost the 
very subject of these Lectures. The materialistic 
analogy from a geological specimen, or a river, or an 
animal species has been applied, and with amazing 
persistence, to ' Christian truth.' Search almost 
where you please (time and place appear to be in- 
different), and you will find the problem of religion 
conceived as if the task were to trace the derivation 



34 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of a fixed thing from a definite source. To attack 
the question thus, however, forecloses the result. 
The method only imports into the religious ' universe ' 
ideas that, primarily, possess no application there, 
and, secondarily, raises false, even irrational, problems 
by vicious analogy. The popularity of the attitude, 
like its constant recurrence, furnish startling com- 
mentary on the dangers superinduced by interferences 
of intellectual abstraction. But, for this very reason, 
it may be viewed as perfectly natural and explicable. 
Interferences similar, say, to those of a microscope, 
our conceptual constructs must be tested and cor- 
rected, even altered or removed, ere we reach a posi- 
tion to record the precise object before us. Aids to 
observation and reflexion they prove from time to 
time, without doubt; yet, plainly, they hold no 
patent rights in truth. And the major difiiculty 
incident to investigation of religion centres precisely 
in man's habit of consecrating them as if they alone 
embodied ascertainable truth. But, just like ^ laws 
of nature, ' recognized openly as abstractions from 
experience, these religious judgements are doomed 
to change, and susceptible to purgation from ex- 
traneous or temporal admixture. Negative instances 
transform them. For example, the discoveries of 
Copernicus, Lyell, and Darwin, on the one hand, 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 35 

of Rawlinson, F. C. Baur, and Kuenen, on the other, 
have altered them profoundly in the course of a brief 
history; while they have been purified, with happy 
frequency, by those miracles of concrete human life 
called saints. On both sides, you see, hard and fast 
system must submit to constant readjustment. Thus, 
most conspicuously, God has justified his ways to man- 
kind. You may conceive redemption in mechanical, or 
juridical, or domestic terms; all prove to have been 
no more than pictorial representations. The problem 
abides unlaid, still capable of further illumination 
by other less inadequate statements. So, if it be 
true, as many tell us, that the collapse of dogmatic 
Christianity forms the most significant among con- 
temporary movements, we need not lose our heads 
and give way to panic. Let us stress the adjective, 
remembering that, in the words of one of the most 
pious scholars of last century, ''many a traditional 
idea which circulates amongst us seems credible 
only because we have never examined it." ^ Let 
us remind ourselves, too, that 'traditional ideas,' 
like present opinions, are no more than essays to 
prefigure religious truth more completely. For the 
truth of religion cannot be brought in question any 
more than the truth of nature, no matter how much 

^ Still Hours, Richard Rothe, p. 68 (Eng. trans.). 



36 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

or how often we may be led to revise our manner 
of formulating both to our meagre understandings. 

Finally, the considerations just adduced seem 
to force the conclusion that, whatever religion may 
be, it is not a set system of formulated doctrine, or 
even an aggregate of clarified beliefs, especially be- 
liefs in the existence of imaginary, or in the authority 
and power of dead, personages. I have referred 
to ' the tension of the complete manhood.' ^ By this 
I mean to suggest that while, probably, a satisfac- 
tory definition of religion is beyond reach, every 
attempt at definition presupposes a certain psycho- 
logical state, — often termed 'spiritual,' — a state pe- 
culiar to human beings, so far as we can know. That 
is to say, we are confronted by a process in experience, 
ofifering the chief characteristics of other processes 
in self-consciousness. In all likelihood, examination 
would prove it excessively complex. Many coeffi- 
cients would enter into its constitution; above all, 
it would be directed by some ideal or apperceptive 
evaluation which, in its turn, would show up endless 
subtleties. It would imply "the control of our 
activity as thinking beings by conditions which are 
fixed for us and not by us." ^ And it might be very 

^ See above, p. 31. 

^ Analytic Psychology^ G. F. Stout, vol. ii, p. 239. 



{', 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 37 

prone to involve the fallacy, universal among savages, 
common even among civilized folk, our neighbours, 
of mistaking subjective for objective necessity. Be 
all this as it may, the psychological situation in the 
process of experience, tense enough to rise to the 
levels of religion, certainly absorbs into itself those 
main factors of the inner life known generally as 
Intellect, Desire, and Will. Thus, as I have tried 
to indicate, the expression by intellect alone falls 
short of the jubilant reality, and unavoidably so. 
Reason seeks order, completion, unity. But the 
spirit-life swoops on, carrying intellect with it, and 
exacting original perspectives for original conclusions. 
Thus any effort after apotheosis of a single stage spells 
failure. Sufficient with incomparable sufficiency as 
the ' beautiful moment ' may be, its very perfection 
breeds defect, the instant its day of due reckoning 
passes. 

"... the thoughts of men are widened with the process 
of the suns." 

The central and dominating fact in religion is its 
imperious call for a new way of life; and this seeks 
freedom as its indispensable condition. Yet, when 
man comes to think of such matters, the central and 
dominating fact is the imperious call for cut-and- 
dried system, for something 'to go by'; and this 



38 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

seeks bondage as its indispensable condition. They 
have never been coordinate, never can be. On the 
other hand, let the intellect fall as short as it may or 
must, it is enlisted invariably, as if in veriest despite. 
The new creature cannot escape self-caricature. 
So, if the heretic of to-day miss beatification to-mor- 
row, the golden words that hush mankind might 
often fall upon silence. Every generation must 
bear the burden of this lesson after its fashion. The 
human soul chains itself at each successive sunset, 
and, with the glow of the next dawn, would fain 
strike off the shackles. But, enamoured of its 
evening artistry, doubts and tears, angry passions 
and ugly words beset it, as it rouses anon to the 
sense of an undone task, and fondles the forms it 
would fain break to be rid of impediments. Past 
satisfactions indeed rest satisfactions; notwithstand- 
ing, unprecedented sights so move, and prophetic 
promptings so pulsate that the throb of joy becomes 
the measure of unplumbed sadness. The ideal, as 
stated, as something to be maintained stoutly, baulks 
the ideal that beckons to distant and untried ends. 
Our tragedy — and our salvation — pivot on a 
religion that professes to come complete from a past 
dead and done with; yet this religion is, or con- 
tinues in vitality, only because quickened by the 



SHEAVES ON THE THRESHING-FLOOR 39 

perennial inspiration of the blood-tinctured present. 
By a law of our innermost nature, then, we are con- 
demned to pass through the valley of negation ere 
we win any Pisgah-sight atop the mount of trans- 
figured and transfiguring faith. 

"For we are Ancients of the earth, 
And in the morning of the times. 
So sleeping, so aroused from sleep 
Thro' sunny decades new and strange, 
Or gay quinquenniads would we reap 
The flower and quintessence of change . . . 
The prelude to some brighter world." 

In the three subsequent Lectures I shall attempt 
to summarize the two intellectual achievements of 
the past century that are responsible for most of 
our present disquiet and unrest in religion; the 
hazards of belief congregate here for us. As I fol- 
low this difficult track, you must do me the favour 
to bear in mind certain things. First, I shall be 
compelled to deal with researches in which I have 
borne no part. They lie as open to you as to me, 
we are equally in the hands of their master-builders. 
In other words, I shall speak, not as an authority, 
but as any educated man might. Second, time- 
limits require that discussions of pros and cons dis- 
appear; these you can find in literature accessible 
to everybody. Third, I fear many fail to realize 



40 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

just what is fast becoming commonplace among 
competent scholars; and so I am bound to arrange 
the material in such a way that its cumulative effect 
may strike straight home. This, indeed, will con- 
dition the problem to which I shall invite your 
attention in the four concluding Lectures. 



LECTURE II 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 



While, as we have seen, religion eludes definition, 
its character cannot be compassed in a series of 
words, a very general description may not transgress 
the bounds of prudence. Religion is a state in- 
duced in self -consciousness by man's sense of his 
own insignificance and imperfection, as contrasted 
with the high vocation revealed to him by his ardent, 
if froward, ideals. Incarnate only in human flesh, 
this psychological condition energizes two ways. 
On the one hand, it compels an accounting from 
the physical world, or seeks reply from Nature to 
all sorts of questions about which, fundamentally. 
Nature must remain utterly dumb. Sweep the 
mighty visibilities of the heavens with the telescope, 
the minute invisibilities of the earth with the micro- 
scope, intensify both range and power of observation 
as you will, you are thrust back, to say, 'Behold, it 
is not there ! ' The Sphinx is ever with us, for, on 
the Whence, the Why, the Whither, this frame of 

41 



42 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

things, as our immediate perceptions disclose it, has 
scarce a hint to offer. On the other hand, the 
religious consciousness composes an interpretation 
of 'spiritual' life, and would force the very gates of 
heaven to assuage its yearning. But, in proceeding 
thus, it quits the region of sober knowledge, and 
acquires what no pure scientia ever pretended to 
supply, — a constructive estimate of the relative 
values to be put upon events possible and probable 
nowhere outside the mystic regions of the soul. 
According as the tension of the religious process is, 
so will the satisfactions peculiar to this evaluation 
be. Here solutions abound in plenty; but they 
descend from their father, the heavenly vision, and 
betray everywhere unmistakable traces of their line- 
age, — an origin in ideal possibility, not in mundane 
attainment. 

"The night is come, and all the world is still. 
Men say it is a time for sleep and dreams; 
But now she throws no pall, upon the space 
That spreads above me. . . . 

Meseems 
This is the hour for man to bend the knee 
Of the full soul to the Divinity." 

Now, even if the ideal truth of religion be thus 
admitted, it were lamentable to forget that the 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 43 

haltino; embodiment issues on earth. An intellect 
manifested in its own refracting forms and processes, 
emotions accompanied by the somatic states char- 
acteristic of an animal, albeit the most complex 
animal, and a will, foiled continually by circum- 
stances that are none of its creation, impose terms 
present in every statement. Thus, as these psycho- 
logical factors, in unison or conflict, happen to 
envisage experience at any given time, so the spe- 
cial activities of consciousness, typical of religion, 
express themselves. Accordingly, difficulties and 
doubts, changes and transformations occur, often 
cozening the human spirit, and yet bearing witness 
to its kaleidoscopic limits, as it struggles to liberate 
its dearest aspirations. 

These matters must now claim attention at some 
length. There never was a crisis when they de- 
manded more candour and plain speaking, or sin- 
cerer discussion of grave questions, especially before 
an audience composed, for the larger part, of those 
who, from day to day, are forced into contact with 
information, ascertained or in process of consolida- 
tion, that traverses some past presentations of 
'Christian truth,' rich in sacred association to many, 
not least to myself. Nevertheless, nobody need 
fear facts; all ought to fear suppositions and ex 



44 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

parte pleas, particularly with regard to subjects of 
the last importance for a sane view of the deep that 
calls unto deep in our common humanity. Afraid 
*to face the music' of all that has become incor- 
porated in the treasure of knowledge, religion shrivels 
easily to superstition. It were surely most perilous 
that, confronted with man's profoundest needs, we 
should rest satisfied with unevidenced affirmations, 
or worse, with opinions erroneous obviously to every- 
one who is free to judge. At this good hour, re- 
ligion suffers violence far more through misbelief 
than through scepticism; nobody mocks Chris- 
tianity, thousands jest over the thaumaturgy where- 
with too many confuse it. Would, indeed, that we 
might pass the cup of these waters of bitterness ! 
But that is impossible — impossible even were the 
conclusion forced irrevocably to those hopeless 
terms; "philosophy having become a meditation, 
not merely of death, but of annihilation, the precept 
know thyself has become transformed into the ter- 
rific oracle to QEdipus — 

" ' Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art.' " ^ 

The scene of proof — and of strife — lies athwart 
the strait way to the valley of blessing. Like Job, 

^ A Candid Examination of Theism, by 'Physicus' (G. J. 
Romanes), p. 114 (3d ed.). 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 45 

we answer the Lord, and say, ''Hear, I beseech thee, 
and I will speak ; I will demand of thee, and declare 
thou unto me." ^ We tempt the Father of Lights, 
and in all reverence, because He has left us without 
other choice, contemporary knowledge being as 
truly a divine revelation as ancient faith. "And he 
called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, 
because of the striving of the children of Israel, and 
because they tempted the Lord, saying. Is the Lord 
among us or not?" ^ 

It will save misunderstanding, and serve to elimi- 
nate qualifications like 'perhaps,' 'but,' 'I think,' 
and so forth, if I state at the outset that my aim is to 
delineate the perspective, still unfamiliar to a con- 
siderable section of the lay public, resultant upon 
the entire trend of enquiry in the nineteenth century, 
and to envisage the attendant difhculties without 
any shirking. In other words, the main tendency of 
science and scholarship in our age, in its full rigour 
and vigour, rather than this or that restricted set of 
conclusions, will pass before us. This is no place 
to exhibit the apparatus in detail, and I must reserve 
particulars for another occasion. You will under- 
stand, therefore, that I am not necessarily in accord 
with every inference; I desire only to state the case 

* Joh xlii. 4. 2 Exodus xvii. 7. 



46 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in such terms that none can mistake its meaning. 
If we are caught in a veritable sea of troubles, we 
must know at least what dangers threaten. 

Unconscious of the strong synthetic and suggestive 
pressure exerted by the prevalent outlook of an 
epoch, we, even the students among us, tend to for- 
get that we gaze upon a recent universe, one con- 
cealed largely, if not completely, a brief century since. 
Cast the mind's eye back to the era of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, or of that mightier cataclysm, 
the French Revolution, and what close grip upon 
men, organisms, and things do we find? Less than 
might be supposed. A mathematical conspectus of 
the mechanical relations subsisting between the 
molar masses of the solar system, extended by 
analogy to a few farther stars, formed the sum-total, 
to all intents and purposes. Of the physical state 
and chemical constitution of these units next to 
nothing had been ascertained intimately. Contrari- 
wise, misconceptions or random guesses abounded 
in the realms of chemistry, natural history, and 
physiology; astounding superstitions concerning 
humanity in its most typical achievements — reli- 
gion, art, morals, and society; nigh total ignorance 
about a possible coherent interpretation of history. 
Accordingly, we must recall that, since the dis- 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 47 

tinguished victim of the French Revolution, Lavoi- 
sier, dethroned phlogiston, the physical sciences — 
astronomy, physics, geology, and chemistry — have 
undergone extensive transformation. Since Bell 
noted the difference between the afferent and efferent 
nerves, the biological sciences have come to birth, 
and accurate conclusions from controlled observa- 
tion have replaced conjectures bred of mere sus- 
picion. Since Hegel enunciated the epoch-making 
principle, that human experience explains its own 
development, and that, otherwise, it is irrational, 
whole series of human sciences have been elaborated. 
Thus, no matter where we pry, we contem_plate a 
universe unsuspected by our forefathers, and com- 
mand numerous principles hidden quite from them. 
Literally, a new heavens, a new earth, and a new 
* all that therein is' salute us. Moreover, whether 
we be astronomers or physicists, chemists or physi- 
ologists, biologists or psychologists, historians or 
philologists, anthropologists or philosophers, we 
envisage our several topics from a standpoint identi- 
cal in essentials for everyone. Indeed, so far has 
this unitary movement proceeded that, for each, as 
concerns his special investigations, another view 
were well-nigh inconceivable. Yet, when Dalton 
was excogitating his atomic theory, just one hun- 



48 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

dred years ago, this same view found no applica- 
tion outside 'celestial mechanics,' and, even there, 
room remained for contradictory possibihties, as was 
evidenced by Newton's naive idea, inherited by 
Paley's egregious philosophy, that a Being uncom- 
monly familiar with the laws of geometry had in- 
jected gravitation and inertia into the heavenly 
bodies. This compelling apposition, between the 
contemporary outlook and that regnant till about 
the middle of last century, may be brought to a 
sharp point in the statement that, for the former, 
the universe is one^ for the latter it always was two. 
To us, the universal processes energizing everywhere 
supply the primary well-springs of explanation; to 
our predecessors, an otiose reference to a somewhat, 
neither mind nor matter (or, as we would say, neither 
consciousness nor energy) , to a somewhat, therefore, 
unknowable ex hypothesi, provided an extra-mun- 
dane mystery whereto nearer mysteries might be 
traced back. And the m'ore subtle the problems on 
hand, the more intricate and elusive their factors, 
the more besetting the presence of this tenuous, 
pervasive makeshift. To illustrate: 'celestial me- 
chanics ' almost excluded it, but in chemistry, 
biology, psychology, literature and language, morals 
and religion, in an expanding series, opportunity 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 49 

offered for the vagaries of supranatural inter- 
ference. 

How potently this metaphrastic phantasy ruled 
may be seen vividly from a cursory acquaintance 
with the marvels supposed popularly to offer ade- 
quate guarantee of authority in morals, of the au- 
thenticity of the human mind, and of the truth of 
religion. Take the last, for example ; what a mourn- 
ful record appears ! The Ptolemaic astronomy, dis- 
torted by geocentric myopia, was made the comer- 
stone of Christianity. The divine inspiration of 
the Hebrew points was held essential to the preser- 
vation of orthodox faith. It was contended that, 
apart from literal foretelling by Old Testament 
prophecy, the New Testament could not be vindi- 
cated. It was asserted, by no less a person than 
Wesley, if memory serve me rightly, that the in- 
violability of the Christian faith is bound up with a 
belief in witchcraft. It was imagined commonly 
that man's hope of eternal salvation reposed on the 
historical accuracy of the creation myth in Genesis, 
and that the certainty of this expectation found 
strong credentials in the fable of Lot's wife and in 
the tale of Jonah's incarceration in the whale. It 
was actually alleged, with perfect sobriety, that the 
discovery that the world and man were created by 



50 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

the Trinity on October 23d, 4004 B.C., at nine o'clock 
in the morning, had essential bearing on the spiritual 
life. It was asked, cynically, "Who will venture to 
place the authority of Copernicus above that of the 
Holy Spirit?" Geology suffered judgement as ''an 
awful invasion of the testimony of revelation." It 
was maintained, as an important scientific fact, that 
because ''death entered the world by sin," there 
was no death on earth prior to Eve's fault. It was 
insisted that "of all instruments of God's vengeance 
the thunderbolt is the chief." Study of physics, as 
of medicine and chemistry, was interdicted by 
ecclesiastical order "on account of certain sus- 
picious novelties." The bones of a goat, suppositi- 
tiously those of St. Rosalia, were employed as 
fetiches to heal disease, on the obvious ground that 
"bodily infirmity frequently results from sin." 
Lunacy and hysteria were attributed to the machi- 
nations of Satan, and treated accordingly. It was 
stated gravely that the Almighty spoke Hebrew, 
and that every language originated from this one 
at Babel. Numbers taught that the Pentateuch 
was dictated to Moses by the Deity about 1520 B.C., 
and affirmed that any other view must be stigmatized 
as "a mass of impieties, a bulwark of irreligion." 
The probable historical interpretation of the famous 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 5 1 

Immanuel passage in ''Isaiah" was dismissed as 
"horrible, false, perverse, and destructive." On the 
contrary, every scientific statement in the Bible was 
described as "infallibly accurate; all its histories 
and narrations of every kind are without any inac- 
curacy, its words and phrases have a grammatical 
and philological accuracy such as is possessed by no 
human composition." ^ Baseless dogmas and childish 
errors of a similar kind might be adduced practically 
without limit ; and, strange to say, all alike — mon- 
strous, absurd, or merely silly — have been put for- 
ward as foundations or essential portions of ' Christian 
truth.' As a matter of fact, so far from having aught 
to do with ' Christian truth,' all issued from the precon- 
ceived view of the universe as two, the Irish-bull con- 
ception of ultimacy, now abandoned by investigators. 
According to current conceptions, the universe 
ebbs and flows in a single, vast order — of a second 
order, incommensurable with this, we know nothing. 
It presents itself as a 'closed whole,' explicable from 
within on its own terms, never as a broken system 
controlled from without by some bruited, but ab- 
sentee, designer. Such is the conclusion to which 

^ See, for very full details, A History of the Warfare between 
Science and Theology in Christendom, Andrew D, White. The 
weak point of the book is Dr. White's rather jejune notion of 
theology- 



52 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

we have been, and are being, driven on all sides by 
serried testimony pouring in overwhelmingly from 
every scrutiny undertaken by special investigation. 
Obviously enough, it imports, not simply a change, 
but a complete revision of the ideas we can enter- 
tain about religion as, indeed, about anything. No 
doubt, a smooth agreement concerning the ways 
taken by the process has not eventuated, cannot 
eventuate, probably, for years to come. But con- 
sensus about the basal fact tends to become more 
and more unified. In other words, differ as we 
may and do over the means operative in the cosmos, 
less and less divergence exists about the attitude to 
be adopted towards the universal order. Whatever 
conclusions may emerge in a future we wot not of, 
certain it is that all who hold convictions respecting 
the immense importance of religion must face the 
altered situation — and the sooner the better. The 
churches, particularly if the laity will rouse and 
assert themselves, stand in the shadow of an unex- 
ampled problem, as of a unique opportunity. Signs 
of the times, so clear that he who runs may read, 
indicate a direct, strenuous demand upon them. 
It amounts to no less than this — that they bring 
Christianity down from the clouds of outworn sup- 
position to tabernacle in the common places of our 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 53 

sore puzzled workaday life. The religion of unre- 
stricted, spontaneous access to God can hardly 
retain its propulsive leadership under the handicap 
of petrific formulae alien from the most earnest in- 
sight of the day, and permeated with imagery too 
often crass in its reminiscent paganism. 

"And not by eastern windows only, 

When daylight comes, comes in the light, 
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, 
But westward, look, the land is bright." 

Beyond question, many cherish the conviction 
that scientific advance has bereft life of worth and 
hope. On the contrary, it is equally clear that num- 
bers raise a joyous paean to the victory of 'reason' 
over 'superstition.' In proceeding to attempt a 
delineation of the case, I shall not forget either ex- 
treme. But the root of bitterness will have pre- 
cedence. 

For the sake of convenience and brevity, it may 
be well to adopt the objective classification of modern 
knowledge. The ' universes ' of ' things ' and of ' liv- 
ing things' group themselves under the title 'science,' 
in the narrow sense accepted conventionally. So, 
too, the 'universes' of 'self and of 'other selves' fall 
together. But this unity exhibits two aspects. On 
the one side, it regards man as he has been and is; 



54 MODEEN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

from another it contemplates him as he ought to 
live, or as he might become. Thus the field of 
knowledge so distributes itself that we are bidden 
review the situation, first, as ' science ' sees it ; sec- 
ond, as it appears from the standpoint of historico- 
critical research; third, as it flashes forth in the 
ideal spheres of morals and religion. Yet, even 
accepting this tripartite division, we must recall 
that, in every instance, the unconquerable duality 
of human nature — as physical and self-conscious 
— produces disturbance and, by consequence, sets 
problems of the utmost intricacy, generates fertile 
misconceptions. 

I. The Scientific Consciousness 

It should be noted at once that the tremulous 
essays of the early masters — Hipparchus, for ex- 
ample — and the refined experiments of a Ruther- 
ford and a Ramsay, of a McMurrich and a Morgan, 
exhibit no difference in spirit. The contrast hap- 
pens to be one of sweep — of the material wherein 
scientific method can work victoriously. So, at the 
outset, let us take stock of this common spirit. 

No recondite observation were necessary to prove 
that, in average affairs, the characters of our friends 
tend to differ. Putting the matter very synoptically, 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 55 

one may affirm that now this, now that, element in 
the psychological organization dominates an indi- 
vidual. We all know the person whom emotion or, 
as often, sentiment masters; similarly, some betray 
the primacy of intellect, others of will. Roughly, 
these contrasts of psychological expression correspond 
to divergent types of reaction upon the most ordinary 
events. Social institutions intimate as much. All 
members do not subserve the same offices, as an 
influential writer saw years ago. "And God hath 
set some in the church, first apostles, secondly 
prophets, thirdly teachers, then powers, then gifts 
of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of 
tongues." ^ Plainly, the aesthetic or emotional, the 
utilitarian or practical, and the critical or reflective 
temperaments are ever with us, each ministering in 
virtue of its special gifts. The last has made the 
nineteenth century peculiarly its own, and, for three 
generations, has contrived to set its seal upon the 
prevalent trend of the age. As its self-set task 
would lead one to expect, its habitual spirit presents 
little, if any, mystery. Confronted with the tortuous 
operations of nature, the scientific consciousness 
scents order throughout, and strives to sublimate its 
consequent inferences into baldest simplicity. The 

^ I Corinthians xii. 2^. 



56 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

laws of motion, the kinetic theory of gases, the law 
of the tides, the theorems of the conservation of 
energy and of evolution are reductions of phenomenal 
flurry to very plain routine. Consequences of long, 
intimate, and most ascetic devotion, their history 
exhibits the attitude necessary to scientific achieve- 
ment. Thus certain qualities evince their unabashed 
presence invariably. To wit: in the first place, 
scrupulous care and unprecedented accuracy. Noth- 
ing is too unimportant to be overlooked; no trouble 
counts for hardship, so long as review and confirma- 
tion continue desiderata; above all, the uttermost 
loyalty to fact rules supreme. Secondly, on the basis 
of these qualities a certain confidence supervenes, 
and receives justification from the gradual rise of a 
solid masonry of knowledge. Small wonder ! For, 
no matter what one's predilections or prejudices, no 
matter what one's hopes, or fears, or desires, con- 
clusions drive home with sublime disregard. In the 
scientific kingdom nought happens according to man's 
wish or will ; everything issues from a dry, intellectual 
recognition that thus, and thus alone, the unheed- 
ing phenomena take their changeless way. Third, 
as a natural sequel, the new coordinations collide 
with otiose supposition and unexamined belief. 
The stimulus of conflict is generated, fresh material 



\ 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 57 

forces itself within the scope of research, and the 
scientific mind presses on to wider inferences. But 
transformation involves destruction, and the very 
process vitalizes once more many affairs left 
for dead or foreclosed. This movement, fourthly, 
leads to formulations of hypotheses — everything 
cannot be settled in a moment; while hypotheses 
demand fresh observations, original experiments, 
and more circumspect reflexion. Accordingly, the 
scientific spirit displays its transitive qualities in 
two main directions. On the one side, by insistence 
upon the need for a definite knowledge purged of 
mystery and snap-shot opinion, it warns the human 
mind against impracticable adventures. On the 
other, by its total disregard of fetters forged by sup- 
position in the 'ages of faith,' it liberates mankind, 
and urges to the analysis of experience in its every 
cranny. Baseless authority thus goes by the board, 
and all restrictions, confining inquiry to ruts where 
* perad ventures ' and prohibitions prevail, vanish 
away. Nothing is to be interdicted; nothing can 
be too unexpected or unpalatable, provided it pre- 
sent itself panoplied with evidence. In a free 
atmosphere a rigid methodism builds out its bridge, 
with elaborate precaution, over the chasm of the 
unknown. 



58 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Consequently, as the scientific spirit sees, its 
mission is never to conform the cosmos to a logical, 
much less to a theological, scheme, but to describe 
verifiable connexions, and to recount how these 
connexions are maintained as a matter of simple 
observation under conditions that preclude sub- 
jective disturbance. As Spencer said, in one of his 
earliest essays : — 

"Considered genealogically, the received theory 
respecting the creation of the Solar System is un- 
mistakably of low origin. You may clearly trace 
it back to primitive mythologies. Its rem.otest 
ancestor is the doctrine that the celestial bodies are 
personages who originally lived on the Earth — a 
doctrine still held by some of the negroes Living- 
stone visited. Science having divested the sun and 
planets of their divine personalities, this old idea 
was succeeded by the idea which even Kepler enter- 
tained, that the planets are guided in their courses 
by presiding spirits: no longer themselves gods, 
they are still severally kept in their orbits by gods. 
And when gravitation came to dispense with these 
celestial steersmen, there was begotten a belief, 
less gross than its parent, but partaking of the same 
essential nature, that the planets were originally 
launched into their orbits from the Creator's hand. 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 59 

. . . While the genesis of the Solar System., and 
of countless other systems like it, is thus rendered 
comprehensible, the ultimate mystery continues as 
great as ever. The problem or existence is not 
solved: it is simply removed further back. The 
Nebular Hypothesis throws no light on the origin 
of diffused matter; and diffused matter as much 
needs accounting for as concrete matter. The 
genesis of an atom is not easier to conceive than the 
genesis of a planet. Nay, indeed, so far from mak- 
ing the Universe a less mystery than before, it makes 
it a greater mystery. Creation by manufacture is 
a much lower thing than creation by evolution. A 
man can put together a machine; but he cannot 
make a machine develop itself. . . . That our har- 
monious universe once existed potentially as form- 
less diffused matter, and has slowly grown into its 
present organized state, is a far more astonishing 
fact than would have been its formation after the 
artificial method vulgarly supposed." ^ 

Free, with complete freedom, to inquire into 
anything, man is as completely bound — bound to 
abide by discernible testimony. Of such is the 
spirit of science. 

^ "The Nebular Hypothesis," Westminster Review, July, 1858; 
see Essays: Scientific, Political, and Speculative, pp. i, 55-56. 
(London, 1863.) 



6o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

What, now, of method? Like every method, 
that of science operates negatively no less than 
positively. Its exclusions signify not a little. Dar- 
win has presented this point with characteristic 
frankness. 

"By collecting all facts which bore in any way on 
the variation of animals and plants under domestica- 
tion and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown 
on the whole subject. My first note-book was 
opened in July, 1837. I worked on true Baconian 
principles, and, without any theory collected facts on 
a wholesale scale, more especially with respect to 
domesticated productions. . . . When I see the 
list of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, 
including whole series of Journals and Transactions, 
/ am surprised at my own industry. I soon per- 
ceived that selection was the keystone of man^s suc- 
cess in making useful races of animals and plants. 
But how selection could he applied to organisms living 
in a state of nature remained for some time a mystery 
to me^ ^ 

The initial requirement of scientific method might 
be summed in the phrase, self-extrusion. To dis- 
cover what the object is, apart entirely from faintest 
hint about what it might be, or from what expecta- 

^ Life and Letters, vol. i, p. 83; the italics are mine. 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 6l 

tion might make it — this is a law of the Medes and 
Persians. ''Nothing happens, it comes." So the 
questions, What comes ? How does it come ? How 
is it maintained in this way rather than that ? reach 
no unclouded solution unless the observer so con- 
trives as to eliminate admixture of self. The inde- 
pendence of the natural order forms a necessary 
postulate. Hence — and here lies the significance 
of the intimation — the scheme of things must be 
taken on its own recognizances. What you may 
think of it, apart from, or in addition to, its self- 
ordained march, counts not a whit. This becomes 
very obvious in the region of experiment. Little as 
the layman may appreciate the fact, the great diffi- 
culty of the experimenter is, not to plan experiments, 
but to bring them under such thorough control that 
he can dissolve them into their simplest concomitant 
elements. For, while experiment spells interference, 
primary analysis implies that the factors work thus 
and so without human interposition. Science, that 
is, enforces continual self-criticism as the prime 
requisite of a reliable method. 
/"Having insured this negative virtue, positive 
procedure is in order. Everybody knows that 
scientific research circles round observation. But 
observation means many things. For instance, it 



62 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

reckons with first-hand knowledge only. / have 
seen such and such, / have noted this and the other, 
or, as a vivid colloquialism puts it, 'I have been 
there.' What artists call atmosphere must have 
been evaporated. In satisfactory observations the 
objects must stand out clear-cut and raw — precise, 
unmistakable results alone avail. No provision 
can be allowed for 'almosts' and 'possibles.' If 
doubtful matters emerge, and especially if they 
persist, the aid of colleagues must be invoked, so 
that personal equation may disappear. Here we 
light upon another characteristic. Certainty rests 
on the rock of caution. Professions of ignorance, 
recognition that, for the present, even bare facts 
stay suh judice, form constant accompaniments of 
eventual success. And this means, further, that 
the real investigator loves no phenomenon more 
than another. Before the tribunal of the ascertain- 
able all facts have permission to tell their own tale 
in their own way. Science discourages attempts to 
put a premium upon selection of evidence to bolster 
any conclusion, however desirable. It were almost 
superfluous to add that, when we pass from mere 
observation to that intensified species of observation 
known as experiment, the greater instability of the 
conditions calls for superlative exercise of the pre- 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 63 

cautions just enumerated. The laboratory has re- 
placed Nature to a large extent, but only because it 
offers a short-cut to Nature. It enables us to save 
time, we need not wait for the leisurely dame to act. 
It places us in position to repeat phenomena in- 
definitely, and it puts within reach very accurate 
estimates of cooperant circumstances. Again, ap- 
paratus does not exist for the purpose of construct- 
ing experiments, as the layman supposes often. On 
the contrary, it is nothing but a means for the ex- 
tension of our senses, as by the seismograph; for 
immense increase in their delicacy of discrimina- 
tion, as by the microscope; or it enables them to 
affect us in strange ways, as by the pseudoscope; 
or it insures an accuracy unobtainable otherwise, as 
by instruments for automatic registration. More- 
over, laboratory methods and equipment help us to 
isolate and examine special constituents of a process, 
to plot the factors of a phenomenon, as it were, and 
thus to obtain mastery, piecemeal, over its ramified 
detail. In total effect, then, experiment originates 
schemes for overcoming and combating human 
limitations, physical and psychological. But its 
veritable revelations are received under the same 
stringent tests that rule direct contact with Nature, 
nay, under conditions even more stringent, because 
amenable to the forethought of control. 



64 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

The facts garnered under these safeguards, in- 
terpretation follows. Here we unveil another pro- 
cedure, one of analysis and classification principally. 
As before, the phenomena dictate. That is, the 
assembled data raise difficulties of identity, simi- 
larity, difference, and contrariety; and the crucial 
measures of combination into groups demand atten- 
tion. These hazardous excursions through the 
accumulated records serve often to disclose dis- 
crepancies, or even to evoke factors which had 
escaped previous notice. To scientific method even 
the slightest divergence acts as a danger-signal. The 
cry is, 'Back to the facts,' or the query is raised, 
'What strange thing are they telling us now about 
themselves?' More than likely, the situation will 
call for a minute analysis. It may be necessary to 
proceed from the complex, supposed simple, to the 
simpler still, in order to find how disturbance origi- 
nates, what it betokens. This regress, like the 
difficulty of dissolving experiments, constitutes one 
of the most exacting practical problems that scien- 
tific method has to face. But, difficulty or no 
difficulty, the old fideHty to fact, the precision, the 
caution, are to be maintained only with sterner 
rigour. 

By consistent use of this method, the scientific 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 65 

consciousness reaches definite results. The common 
phrase 'natural law' labels one kind of inference; 
the less familiar, and often misunderstood, term 
'hypothesis' proclaims another. At present, scien- 
tific inquirers disagree about the nature of ' law,' 
more particularly with regard to objective neces- 
sity or validity, and I cannot enter upon the grounds 
of quarrel here. Suffice it to say, they involve a very 
intricate problem beyond the competence of science, 
and that two views, the 'materialistic' or 'realist,' 
and the ' agnostic,' receive support. The older con- 
tention appears plainly in the following statement : — 

"A Force is a Power which initiates or accelerates 
aggregative motion, while it resists or retards sepa- 
rative motion, in two or more particles of ponder- 
able matter (and possibly also of the ethereal 
medium) . 

"All particles possess the Power of attracting one 
another — in other words, of setting up mutually 
aggregative motion — unless prevented by some 
other Power of an opposite nature. Thus a body 
suspended freely in the air is attracted towards the 
earth by the Force (or aggregative Power) known as 
Gravitation. A piece of sugar, held close over a 
cup of tea, attracts into itself the water of the tea- 
cup, by the Force (or aggregative Power) known as 
Capillarity. A spoon left in tea grounds or a foot 
planted on the moist sand similarly attracts the 






66 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

neighbouring drops. A piece of iron or coal ex- 
posed to free oxygen (each at a certain fixed tempera- 
ture) attracts the particles of oxygen by the Force 
known as Chemical Affinity. In every case there 
must be an absence of counteracting Energies (or 
separative Powers) sufficient to prevent the union 
of the particles: . . . every particle attracts every 
other particle in some one of various ways, unless 
prevented by other Powers." ^ 

Evidently, Allen laboured under the impression 
that 'law' existed in an external world, and there- 
fore that it could or did lead man into the precmcts 
of essential reality. That is, natural law might be 
viewed as a 'thing' governing other 'things' and, 
by consequence, as offering a key to the constitution 
of being. On this interpretation, nature and mech- 
anism become convertible terms, for we know causes 
in substantial existence. On the contrary, many 
contemporary leaders affirm that a 'natural law' 
cannot count for more than a symbol. 

"A natural law, therefore, is not implied in the 
conformity of the behaviour of the energies, but this 
conformity is rather conditioned by the uniformity 
of our modes of conception and is also partly a 
matter of good fortune." ^ 

^ Force and Energy, a Theory of Dynamics, Grant Allen, pp. 5-6. 
2 Popular Scientific Lectures, Ernst Mach, p. 175 (Eng. trans., 
Chicago, 1895). 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 67 

" All principles single out, more or less arbitrarily, 
now this aspect, now that aspect, of the same facts, 
and contain an abstract summarized rule for the re- 
figurement of the facts in thought. . . . Cause and 
effect, therefore, are things of thought, having an 
economical office. ... In nature there is no law 
of refraction, only different cases of refraction. The 
law of refraction is a concise compendious rule, 
devised by us for the mental reconstruction of a 
fact, and only for its reconstruction in part, that is, 
on its geometrical side." ^ 

Summarily put, these positions imply that we 
provide ' laws of nature ' by formulating uniformities 
of sense-perception. No 'law' is poised 'out there.' 
Our 'awareness' is solely of successions and co- 
existences of relations in a universal motion. If we 
agree, as we may easily, that science furnishes no 
ground-plan of the foundations of knowledge, but 
gifts simply a procedure for the dispersion of ig- 
norance, we shall have mediated between the two 
views to some extent. For, after all, a law, as un- 
derstood in both, amounts to a generalized statement 
of observed uniformities, nothing more. And, as 
the actual observations fall short of totality, in the 
nature of the case the conclusion imposes probability 

^ The Science of Mechanics, Ernst Mach, pp. 83-84, 485-486 
(Eng. trans., 2d ed.). 



68 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in various degrees. The instant we travel beyond 
this record, we quit the region of scientific stability. 
Again, hypotheses must be described as reflective 
extensions of ascertained fact.^ A hypothesis forms 
the antecedent of any judgement which hangs upon 
an *if.' The consequent must needs be constructed 
from phenomena accessible to practical observa- 
tion. For instance, I find myself unable to account 
for certain phenomena in the dispersion of light. 
Then, on the basis of careful observation, I declare, 
* If a molecule be a heavy mass, connected by mass- 
less springs with a massless shell, then these observed 
phenomena come within the bounds of the explicable.' 
But the relative credibility of the antecedent hy- 
pothesis depends upon its relation to the consequent, 
and this, once more, is built from the facts encoun- 
tered by me in the routine of observation. Evi- 
dently, then, the results of scientific method, whether 
laws or hypotheses, fall to be classed as interpreta- 
tions of his experiences by a being for whom they 
occur thus and not otherwise. In short, they belong 
to the intellectual realm, liberated as completely as 
may be from every reference to desire (emotion) and 
will (wish). 

^ Cf. Modern Electrical Theory, Norman Robert Campbell, 
especially p. 231. 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 69 

Finally, what consequences emerge, as concerns 
the present subject? They present themselves in 
two guises — practical and theoretical. On the 
practical side, an impassable gulf separates the 
temper of science from the temperament of religion. 
By a steadfast instinct, the religious man refers in- 
variably to a 'cause,' or causes, capable of explain- 
ing much more than stands in scientific question as 
a usual rule. By acquired discipline the investigator 
of nature either rejoins, *I cannot understand what 
you mean,' or answers, with decision, *I find no trace 
of any such cause amid the phenomena I have ob- 
served.' In other words, for him the phenomena 
explain themselves from within, and, beyond this, 
no opinion can be passed upon them; he has been 
cured completely of — 

" that insomnia which is God." 
When Galileo's judges decided that — 

"The doctrine that the earth is neither the centre 
of the universe nor immovable, but moves even 
with a daily rotation, is absurd, and both philosoph- 
ically and theologically false, and at the least an 
error of faith," ^ 

their evidence consisted of preconceived dogmas 
(proven untrue since), and of an appeal to faith, 

^ Congregation of 22d June, 1633. 



70 MODERN TI-IOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

without pertinence in the ranges of physical re- 
search. Nothing could well seem further removed 
from their method than, for example, the astro- 
physical enquiries of the contemporary astronomer. 
And, if the practical test be applied, the result leaves 
no room for doubt. The propositions of the Prel- 
ates and Cardinals do not work; those, say, of the 
Director of Lick Observatory do. Nevertheless, 
religion and science remain integral to life equally; 
therefore a large discrepancy must lie secreted 
somewhere. 

When we uncover the theoretical consequences, 
the precise nature of the situation begins to loom up. 
The conjunct enquiries of the sciences converge on 
the decision that the universe is a single, if extraordi- 
narily ramified, system of energy. At all events, we 
gather this inference from observation and experi- 
ment, no matter in what field. Not only so, we can 
and do deduce it from the most stable and authentic 
principle yet compassed by the human mind, — the 
dynamical generalization, outlined by Newton, and 
clinched since, in numerous unanticipated ways, by 
many others. Moreover, energy provides an ulti- 
mate to which everything else may be reduced. 
Starting, then, from this base-line (the most care- 
fully and accurately surveyed that we have, remem- 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 7 1 

ber), What follows? Adapting an ancient affirma- 
tion, the final judgement formulates itself thus : the 
heavens declare the glory of Newton and Kirchhoff, 
the earth showeth the. handiwork of Helmholtz and 
Darwin. One epitome of the cosmos goes glimmer- 
ing, another illuminates the firmament, full-orbed. 

At this late day it were superfluous to point out 
that these doctrines are not synonymous with ma- 
terialism, for materialism has been relegated to the 
bottomless limbo of epistemological discards. Nev- 
ertheless, they intimate, with no uncertain sound, 
that nature presents itself as a self-explanatory 
totality. Even in the tenuous region of mind, 
natural causes are found to suffice for natural 
effects. As Huxley said, science means " the gradual 
banishment from all regions of human thought of 
what we call spirit and spontaneity." ^ When 
European culture had accustomed itself to the 
Copernican astronomy, no one objected to the sub- 
stitution of mechanical law for supernatural design, 
so far as the stars in their courses were concerned. 
And the same story, substantially, can be related 
about the direful discoveries of geology and biology 
in the course of last century. The folk who assev- 

^ On the Physical Basis of Life, Collected Works, vol. i, p. 159 
(London, 1893). 



72 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

erated that ''the principle of natural selection con- 
tradicted the revealed relation of creation to its 
Creator," laid Darwin at Lyell's side in the hallowed 
fane twenty-two years later. And, in our own 
persons, a similar movement has operated to vaster 
issues after another lapse of a quarter century. 
Educated men, at least, agree to accept natural 
explanations, not only for foreign objects in the 
stellar offing, but, through the offices of chemistry, 
physiology, and biology, for the nearest intimacies 
of their own flesh. Nay, not content with these 
triumphs, science has essayed a bolder step. The 
evolution hypothesis has laid hold upon the dis- 
tinctively spiritual organization. Psychology, for 
instance, and anthropology in its festooned rami- 
fications, proceed upon a naturalistic basis no less 
confidently than the sciences of 'external' nature. 
Huxley's affirmation, if a statement of fact in his 
day, bears the semblance of a prophecy to us. For, 
materialism, thrust from the front door of the 
scientific edifice with mighty clangour, has been 
succeeded by a new tenant, smuggled in quietly at 
a side entrance — one like-minded, if less disagree- 
able. Naturalism is in occupancy. 

Now Naturalism pivots fundamentally upon the 
doctrine of evolution, nay, upon the doctrine of 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 73 

evolution interpreted in one way, and therefore 
committed to the exclusion of certain competitive 
views. Drawn synoptically, the position may be 
outlined thus: the most complex phenomena of 
nature are reducible to simpler, these to still simpler, 
until, at length, one arrives at bed-rock in determina- 
tions of motion, capable of synthesis and retention 
in mathematical formulae. For psychology, — 

"The soul and its faculties, the great entity and 
the small entities, disappear, and we have to do 
only with internal events, which as sensations and 
mental images translate physical events, or which, 
as ideas, movements, volition and desire, are trans- 
lated into the physical events. . . . Psychology is 
connected again with the laws of life and with its 
mechanism." ^ 

For the sciences to which physiology is basal, the 
most careful investigators — 

"see no grounds for accepting a vitalistic principle 
that is not a physico-causal one." ^ 

Thus, — 

"when we attempt to think out what the organiza- 
tion is, we almost unavoidably think of it as a struc- 
ture having the properties of a machine, and working 

^ German Psychology of To-Day^ Th. Ribot, p. 8. 
' Regeneration, Thomas Hunt Morgan, p. 287. 



74 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in the way in which we are accustomed to think of 
machines as working." * 

Again, — 

''During the last twenty years the relation between 
the transformation of matter and energy has played 
a prominent part in physiological research. . . . 
Robert Mayer and Helmholtz announced the prin- 
ciple of the conservation of energy and regarded its 
applicability to the human organism as an axiom. 
Recent investigation has done notable service in 
proving this axiom with certainty. It was demon- 
strated, in the case of animals at rest, that the heat 
given out was exactly equal to that of the combus- 
tion of the substances assimilated in the body 
(Rubner). . . . After having resolved the simpler 
problem of determining the transformation of 
energy in the resting body, the more difficult task 
of measuring this transformation during work was 
undertaken. By modification of the above-indicated 
methods one is now able to find out precisely how 
much nourishment the animal organism must use 
if it is to perform a definite amount of mechanical 
labour. 

" American investigators, Atwater, Benedict, and 
their fellow-workers, have recently, in a very complete 
way, followed the transformation of matter and 
energy in man, under various conditions of nourish- 
ment, and occupation. The respiratory calorimeter 

^ Regeneration, ThOmas Hunt Morgan, p. 281. 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 75 

which they constructed is the most perfect machine 
that has hitherto been devised for the study of the 
transformation of matter and energy in living animals. 
With these investigations concerning the amount 
of matter and force needed by man and beast in 
various work, together with the study of the most 
efficient foods, the physiology of nutrition enters 
into hygienic and sociological questions of the great- 
est significance." ^ 

Or, as our foremost American authority. Professor 
Jacques Loeb, holds, instincts have developed out 
of reflexes, thinking out of instincts; thus, as bio- 
chemical research seems to prophesy, the whole 
problem of human thought will be explained finally 
in terms of physical chemistry. 

And so the incomplexity — by comparison — of 
chemistry and physics is reached, and we find our- 
selves dominated thoroughly by the mechanical the- 
ory, the most abstract, and therefore the most work- 
able and accurate, of all human generalizations. 
Consequently, in the last analysis, every research 
yields to a resolution "als Mechanik der Atome."^ 
Throughout the entire welter of phenomena, this 

^ The International Quarterly, vol. xii, No. 2, pp. 327-328, 
Nathan Zunz {The Progress of Physiology). 

^ Cf. Die Willenshandhcng, Hugo Miinsterberg, p. 9, and 
passim. 



76 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

account suffices, whatever our religious views ; and we 
abide by it implicitly in practical affairs, — in en- 
gineering, in dietetics, in the regulation of public 
health, in domestic plumbing, and so on. The me- 
chanical theory is over all our works. The uniformity 
of nature, widening ever as research blazes its labori- 
ous trail, seizes fresh phenomena and affords such 
explanation as is attainable under the inexorable 
circumstances. For our present subject, the gravity 
of the conclusion can scarcely be exaggerated, be- 
cause, if it hold, ' Christian truth,' in any con- 
ventional codification of it, has fallen upon 
irremediable bankruptcy. 

Nakedly set forth, the theory comes to this. Ob- 
servation and experiment, as conducted under rigid 
conditions in the natural sciences, combine to show 
that the universe is to be adjudged unalterably a mech- 
anism. The human body, on the current reading 
of evolution, cannot be regarded as other than a bit 
of this mechanism, while consciousness sinks to the 
level of an ' epiphenomenon,' a side issue, of the 
nervous system. So all the activities, segregated 
from the purely physical world traditionally, under 
the term 'self -consciousness,' take their places among 
the other facts of nature. No break asserts its 
presence. This granted, every vestige of ' Christian 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 77 

truth ' disappears, a more completely baseless fabric 
of a dream never sprang from fond, unchastened 
imagination. Even if aspiration be allowed some 
free play, as a kind of charity, the utmost comfort 
available to ease the sombre burden of life simmers 
down to that neo-Stoicism taught openly now in 
several quarters. 

"Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and 
all his race the slow sure doom falls pitiless and dark. 
Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, om- 
nipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, 
condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow 
himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it 
remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the 
lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining 
the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at 
the shrine that his own hands have built; undis- 
mayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind 
free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward 
life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that 
tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his con- 
demnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding 
Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned 
despite the trampling march of unconscious power." ^ 

At the moment, it is none of my affair to attempt 
adjudication upon the adequacy, much less the truth, 

^ Ideals of Science and Faith, p. 169, Hon. Bertrand Russell 
{An Ethical Approach); edited by the Rev. J. E. Hand. 



78 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of these systematic inferences. Rather, my point 
is taken thus: they proclaim a crisis that admits of 
no half-measures, of no paltering in any shape. 
Confronted thus, as we are, it were worse than useless 
to rehearse hoary propositions formulated at a time 
when other possibilities engaged mankind; it were 
mere folly to fold one's hands, so to speak, and indulge 
a soporific hope that, somehow, all may end well. 
These things do not lie on the lap of the gods, they 
happen to be human issues, amenable to human 
influences, and to none other. As a matter of plain 
fact (forgive me for reminding you once more), 
western civilization accepts the concatenation of 
phenomena, whence such views have precipitated, 
at every turn in practical life. Your railroads and 
trolley cars, your telegraphs and telephones, your 
hospitals and laboratories, in brief, the thousand 
things that constitute the very possibility of all that 
you term civilization, were created by the devotion of 
many who, in loyalty to their own insight, feel con- 
strained to these positions. Moreover, as concerns 
knowledge itself, on the theoretical side, the average 
man agrees to-day that the astronomer and physicist, 
the chemist and physiologist, the biologist and physi- 
cian, the psychologist and philologist, have earned 
the right to speak with authority. The old-time 



I 



THE WATERS OF MERIBAH 79 

scribes have met their Waterloo, as many recognize, 
if in dazed fashion. Or, to put the case otherwise, 
science has become such an enormous power in the 
most ordinary affairs of existence, and no less in the 
circumambient perspective wherein we set the import 
of our lives, that it were fatuity to suppose ourselves 
able to disregard even its extremest pronouncements. 
To adopt its advice when useful or pleasant, to pass 
it by on the other side when it constrains or seems 
distasteful, is a course closed to the reflective mind. 
That numbers have availed themselves of this sub- 
terfuge during the past generation throws no lustre 
on human perspicacity. That an evasion so obvious 
can continue, the trend of the intellectual events 
from day to day shows, decisively, to be out of the 
reckoning. To use a homely phrase, 'you can't eat 
your cake and have it.' Either you must capitulate 
at discretion eventually, or you must be prepared 
to reconsider, de novo, the place of religion in ex- 
perience. The naive simplicity of orthodox belief, 
so called, has gone beyond recovery. Disaster or 
not; mental innocence has eaten of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil at the hands of science. 
This, at a minimum, stands beyond question. 
Whether, on the other side, naive heterodoxy has 
proven itself a defensible consummation is an entirely 



8o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

different affair. In any event, it serves itself now 
as a philosophy of the universe; despite its multi- 
plied placards, erected in warning against 'metaphys- 
ical quagmires,' it parades, not merely as a meta- 
physic, but as a metaphysic of a highly dogmatic type. 
We may say, therefore, ''Thou hast appealed unto 
Caesar; unto Caesar shalt thou go." ^ But, mean- 
time, this appeal releases nobody from the obligation 
to recognize the immense change frankly, to become 
familiar with its basis, factors, and logic. 

^ Acis XXV. 12. 



4 



4 



LECTURE III 

BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 

Even if he admit the validity of scientific 
method, and appreciate the sweep of the scientific 
view of the universe, the dogmatic Christian may 
yet exclaim, " Our withers are unwrung ! " Un- 
doubtedly, he may allege that the natural sciences, 
while paramount in affairs pertaining to the physical 
world in its widest scope, cannot deal with spiritual 
life. He may remind himself that affection, and 
devotion, and worship elude mathematical formulae, 
are intractable to causal relationship, and, more 
than likely, evade the grasp of mechanical, chemical, 
or physiological characterizations. Nay, as matter 
of record, religion has continued to maintain itself 
inviolable against the assaults, say, of materialism 
in the mid-nineteenth century, by a more or less 
conscious affirmation of this very argument. The 
average man cannot be expected to realize that the 
weapon cuts both ways, that it is as dangerous to 
the user, religion, as to the intellectual constructions 
attacked. Therefore we may admit the plea for the 

G 81 



82 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

moment. But, when one comes to historico-critical 
research and its conclusions, no such extenuations 
avail. History and criticism stand on the same 
plane with religion. They deal with self-conscious- 
ness, proceed from it. In short, the breaches they 
effect are ''breaches of the house," not merely devas- 
tations, perilous, maybe, but perilous afar. Here, 
then, we must anticipate an internal assault, one from 
which no easy way of escape offers. If science 
threaten, history and criticism seem in a position 
to command. 

II. The Historico-Critical Movement 

As its title implies, the historico-critical movement 
belongs to that most modern group of investigations 
known generally by the name ' human ' sciences. 
From the earliest times till within recent years, the 
activities typical of mankind were sequestered from 
exact enquiry. " Order, Heaven's first law," appeared 
to be set at defiance by the multifarious chances of 
society, morals, art, and religion. Myth, legend, 
and marvel found congenial environment here, be- 
cause they alone sufficed to bridge yawning gaps; 
while supposition, no matter how far-fetched, did 
duty for objective fact as concerned phenomena 
so rooted in the recesses of psychological peculiarity 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 83 

that the resources of intelligence were foiled. Thus 
mystery cloaked human doings on all sides, and even 
the most penetrating scientific minds were nowise 
loath to admit that the universe was dual — a natural 
order expressing itself without variableness or shadow 
of turning, and an inward spirit, flashing forth with 
caprices so strange that suprahuman intervention 
became a regnant postulate.* But, in the wane 
of the eighteenth century, several thinkers, especially 
in Germany, began to suspect that diligent study 
of the past might "lead into the council chamber of 
fate," to use the words of Herder, in whose seminal 
works, "Folk Songs," "Ideas on the Philosophy 
of History of Mankind," and "God, Friendly Con- 
versations," this suspicion crystallized into something 
like system. Hegel, the only philosopher whom 
modem Europe can place beside the masters of 
those who know, — Plato, Aristotle, and Spinoza, — 
articulated Herder's suggestions, and, since his death, 
in 1 83 1, thanks mainly to his epoch-making fer- 
mentum cognitionis, supplemented by that of Comte 
in France, an extensive group of expert investigations 
has concentrated upon the elusive theme. Anthro- 
pology, archaeology, philology, in their numerous 
ramifications, the historical disciplines, and allied 

^ One of my, own teachers, the late Lord Kelvin, countenanced 
this position. 



84 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

studies have torn the veil of mythology from man's 
past, and taught us to regard his present as part of 
a vast self-developing order. We have learned that 
all articulated knowledge is science, that operative 
principles can be discovered, not merely in the physi- 
cal universe, but even in the most unlikely corners 
of the psychological realm. In a word, the trans- 
formation of possible views concerning humanity 
is almost more profound than the parallel reversal 
in the natural sciences. 

The barest description of a field so immense is 
quite beyond my competence. It may help, however, 
if I attempt to illustrate the general process by refer- 
ence to a single case with which, in all likelihood, 
you possess some acquaintance — I mean the civili- 
zation of ancient Greece. 

When the foremost classical scholars of the day 
were schoolboys, Greece enjoyed a comparatively 
brief history, as history counts now. Moreover, 
she seemed isolated in exceptional fashion, and her 
sudden cultural efflorescence was a perennial wonder. 
The Homeric poems were conceived, and rightly, 
as legends in romantic form, dating back probably 
between the eleventh and eighth centuries B.C. 
Full of picturesque traditions and enthralling story, 
even their most vivid descriptions could not be verified 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 85 

historically. As products of poetic imagination they 
were magnificent, unparalleled; as reminiscences of 
an actual civilization they implied little, and served 
only to engender speculations impossible to check. 
Indeed these speculations flourished luxuriantly. 
But, after 1870, Greece gained even more reality 
than she had possessed hitherto. The discoveries 
of the temple and halls of Olympia, by Curtius and 
his colleagues, injected fresh Hfe into the glorious fifth 
century. At Pergamon Conze uncovered the colossal 
work, such as the wonderful altar, characteristic 
of Hellenic genius after Alexander the Great. Mean- 
while, almost in the twinkling of an eye, the mythical 
Greece of Homeric legend was set before an astonished 
world. From 1870 to 1885 the remarkable and mani- 
fold discoveries of Schliemann, at Hissarlik, Mycenae, 
Orchomenos, and Tiryns successively, revealed the 
existence of a complex prehistoric culture, ante- 
dating the Homeric poems by four centuries or more. 
While it may be doubted whether Schliemann re- 
covered the grave of Agamemnon and the treasure 
of Priam, or explored the house of Atreus, it is true 
that he bared the palaces of Homeric rulers, and 
that he compelled the reconsideration of the course 
of civilization in what was to become ' Greece.' In 
any event, the end was not yet. The French ex- 



86 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

cavations at Delphi, the Jerusalem of Greece, those 
of the Americans at the Argive Heraeum, the met- 
ropolitan shrine of pre-Homeric times, served to 
whet expectation, to dissipate some difficulties, and 
to create others. Nor is this all. 

Writing about twenty-five years ago, in full ac- 
quaintance with SchHemann's larger results, one of 
the most judicious historians of Greece said : — 

"Another example of the influence of imagination 
on the form assumed by early history is furnished 
by the personality of Minos. In Homer he is a son 
of Zeus. . . . Hesiod makes him rule with the sceptre 
of Zeus over many men dwelling around him. . . . 
Herodotus makes Minos rule over the islanders. . . . 
According to Thucydides, Minos was the first king 
who possessed a fleet of war. . . . We hold, on the 
contrary, that Minos is a mythical personage, like 
Perseus and Heracles, and that the actions which 
are ascribed to him as history are nothing but a 
gradual accretion of legendary embellishments. We 
might just as well look upon his colleague ^Eacus as 
a historical personage, and commend his mild rule 
over his people." ^ 

Yet, as the first months of the twentieth 
century dawned, an English investigator^ found, 

* History of Greece, Adolph Holm, vol. i, pp. 49-50 (Eng. trans.). 
^ Dr. Arthur J. Evans, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, 
Oxford. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 87 

in Crete, marvellous evidences of a great empire, 
based on sea power, over which this same Minos 
ruled.^ The Homeric tradition, that Minos 
lived before Agamemnon, like some of the other 
traditions mentioned by Holm, received unforeseen 
conj&rmation. The palace at Knossos, let alone 
numerous other discoveries, at Zakro, Palaikastos, 
Praeses, Mount Ida, Mount Dicta, and Vapheio near 
Sparta, raise problems of the most acute interest, 
bring much prehistoric mystery to the light of open 
day, and make it possible to initiate enquiry into 
what may come to be termed '^gean' civilization. 
As with Schliemann, so here, it may not be true 
that Dr. Evans has found the storied Labyrinth 
and tracked the awful Minotaur to his familiar 
haunts, or wandered in the palace of Alcinous. But 
he may have set back a civilization to which ''we 
are justified in applying the name Greek" ^ to a 
period 3800 B.C., that is, relatively as early as our 
knowledge of Egypt; nay, he may have furnished 
warrant for the inference that primitive man made 
his home here at a time when the Sumerians were 

^ I do not imply that a Minos was historical, of course ; the name 
is possibly a title, like Caesar, or, like Creon, may mean simply a 
ruler. On Crete as a 'world-power,' see Les Pheniciens et VOdys- 
see, Victor Berard, vol. i, pp. 225 f. 

2 A. Furtwangler in the International Quarterly, vol. xii, p. 109. 



88 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

founding their city on the Persian Gulf. However 
this may turn out ultimately, the ascertained facts 
afford plenteous surprises. A modem lavatory and 
drainage system, examples of the goldsmith's art 
unrivalled except by the Italian craftsmen of the 
Renascence, plaster work fit to stand comparison 
with the sculpture of the classical age, achievements 
in porcelain so excellent as to suggest connexion 
with the idealized plaques of the shield of Achilles,^ 
numerous intaglios graven finely with various mon- 
sters, a system of weights and money, clever miniatures 
on crystal, mural paintings of tribute bearers, — all 
point to a forceful empire, pulsating with intense life, 
far away in the mists of a dim antiquity. The palace 
of its monarchs, as now excavated, taken with the 
accessories found there, may well render the 
famous passage in the ''Odyssey"^ no romantic 
legend, but rather a memory of an impressive fact ; 
while the paved Theatral Area cannot but recall the 
dancing ground "such as once in spacious Knossos 
Daedalus fashioned for Ariadne of the braided hair."^ 

^ Iliad, xviii, 478 f. ^ viii, 83 f, 

3 Iliad, xviii, 590 f. The first building at Knossos is striking 
in its non-Hellenic character; the Cretan palace is a labyrinth of 
rooms, the Northern (or Hellenic) Megaron is one-roomed; at 
Mycenae and Tiryns, for example, the two styles are found in 
combination. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 89 

Who these Minoans, master-builders and rare 
artists, may have been, scholars are not yet clear. 
Their work intimates at least that Periclean art was 
no fatherless sport in the ^Egean environment. 
Moreover, their religion offers pregnant hints, full of 
intricate problems. It centred round the cult of a 
female divinity, evidently a nature-goddess, and 
therefore associated with fertility.^ With her an 
obscurer being, a god, was worshipped, and held in 
regard sometimes as her son, sometimes as her hus- 
band. This collocation, so strange to us, at once 
suggests the parallel of Ishtar and Tammuz, with its 
very remote goddess-mother and long retinue of per- 
sistent myths. Traces of fetich worship, kindred 
with the Semitic, exist also. The trilith, or sacred 
portal, at Goulas, the asherahs and massebas, the 
sacred doves and dovecote, the tree cult, must 
compel further enquiry and, at length, serve to extri- 
cate some questions intractable now. And so the 
problem of the relation between Minoan and Semitic 
culture becomes urgent, especially if, as some were 
formerly wont to think, S argon of Agade never saw 
the "Upper Sea." Can the one enable us to under- 
stand the other better ? Did they come into contact ? 
if so, how and when, and how intimately? If not, 

^ She was also the queen of wild beasts. 



90 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

what comparative results can we extract from analysis 
of the respective cults ? Again, can it be maintained 
that Phoenician art was no more than Minoan in a 
decadent stage? In view of Dr. Evans's 'library' 
from the palace, containing about one thousand 
tablets, written in a clear script, which antedates 
Phoenician writing by five centuries, what are we to 
say next of the settled opinion that assigns the Greek 
alphabet to Phoenician sources? Was an Indo- 
European language the medium of communication 
in the i^gean basin during the Minoan supremacy ? ^ 
When scholars acquire the key to the Knossos tablets, 
shall we be able to close the gap between Eastern and 
Western civilization so called ? What is the relation 
of the Minotaur to the Hittite god (Sutekh ?) standing 
on a bull? What about the double-headed axe of 
the Cretan Zeus and the same weapon of the Hittite 
Amazon priestesses, the traditional founders of 
Ephesus ? Did Crete give Zeus to Greece, or do we 
only find very primitive elements in the worship of 
the god, throwing light, possibly, on his origin ? ^ 
How did Zeus-worship evolve from that of the 



* It is well to recall that the names Larisa, Zakynthos, Arisbe, 
Narkissos, and the like are not Greek. 

^ 'Zeus' may be merely a late conventional way of naming the 
Cretan bull god. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 9 1 

Nature-Mother? Can we trace a parallel evolution 
of Yahweh? 

In like manner, the brute-headed men on the 
Minoan seals, although they present affinities with 
Babylonia, refer one immediately to Egypt. And the 
same problems arise. Whatever may be the final 
consensus of scholarship as to details, it is probable 
that the Cretan excavations have disclosed a civiliza- 
tion of Oriental, rather than Occidental, temper. 
Minoan culture belongs with the Near East, not with 
western Europe, even if its cursive script may yet 
conceal much. It may be, for example, that the 
Cretan empire builders and the ancient Libyan race 
of Egypt are of common stock. If so, then we must 
look for the roots of Greek civilization in Africa! 
Now for our present point. 'iEgean' culture as 
Asian (or African) is a startling idea to those of us 
who have been taught time out of mind to consider 
Greece the bulwark of European salvation from 
'barbaric' eastern conquest. Nay, our boyhood 
tradition hails from Plato : ''We are pure Hellenes," 
he says,^ "having no admixture of foreigners, and 
therefore the hatred of the barbarian has passed 
unadulterated into the life-blood of the city." These, 
and similar discoveries, serve to show how a priori 

^ Menexenus, 245. 



92 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

theories and speculative possibilities must yield to 
transformation in face of new knowledge, and give 
way before transitive rearrangement of familiar, but 
misunderstood or obscure facts. 
cv^This resurrection of the past forms but one of many 
triumphs wrought by the 'human' sciences these 
last three generations. Sumerian, Babylonian, Ela- 
mite, Hittite, Assyrian, Egyptian, Chaldaean, and 
Persian overlordships, to say nothing of the civiliza- 
tions peculiar to the Far East, have paraded before 
our rapt gaze. And we realize, for the first time, 
that the history of human culture presents itself as a 
long, slow process amenable to explanation from 
within. We elicit the meaning from the facts, not by 
reference to a presumed supranatural interference 
from without. The respective attitudes of research 
and ignorance are nowhere better illustrated than by 
Dr. Evans's own account of his discovery of the splen- 
did fresco, the "Cupbearer," at Knossos. 

"In carefully uncovering the earth and debris in a 
passage at the back of the southern Propylaeum there 
came to light two large fragments of what proved 
to be the upper part of a youth bearing a gold- 
mounted silver cup. The robe is decorated with a 
beautiful quatre-foil pattern; a silver ornament 
appears in front of the ear, and silver rings on the 
arms and neck. What is specially interesting among 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 93 

the ornaments is an agate gem on the left wrist, thus 
illustrating the manner of wearing the beautifully 
engraved signets of which many clay impressions 
were found in the palace. 

" The colours were almost as brilliant as when laid 
down over three thousand years before. For the 
first time the true portraiture of a man of this mys- 
terious Mycenaean race rises before us. The flesh 
tint, following perhaps an Egyptian precedent, is of a 
deep reddish brown. The limbs are finely moulded, 
though the waist, as usual in Mycenaean fashions, is 
tightly drawn in by a silver-mounted girdle, giving 
great relief to the hips. The profile of the face is 
pure and almxOst classically Greek. This, with the 
dark curly hair and high brachycephalic head, re- 
calls an indigenous type well represented still in the 
glens of Ida and the White Mountains — a type 
which brings with it many reminiscences from the 
Albanian highlands and the neighbouring regions of 
Montenegro and Herzegovina. The lips are some- 
what full, but the physiognomy has certainly no 
Semitic cast.^ The profile rendering of the eye shows 
an advance in human portraiture foreign to Egyptian 
art, and only achieved by the artists of classical 
Greece in the early fine-art period of the fifth cen- 
tury B.C. — after some eight centuries, that is, of 
barbaric decadence and slow revival. 

^ It may be noted that the purest type of the Semite is the 
Arabian, and that type does not correspond to the one generally 
suggested by the word * Semite,' viz. the Jew and Assyrian. 



94 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

"There was something very impressive in this vision 
of brilliant youth and of male beauty, recalled after 
so long an interval to our upper air from what had 
been till yesterday a forgotten world. Even our 
untutored Cretan workmen felt the spell and fascina- 
tion. They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such 
a painting in the bosom of the earth as nothing less 
than miraculous, and saw in it the 'icon' of a 
Saint ! The removal of the fresco required a delicate 
and laborious process of underplastering, which 
necessitated its being watched at night, and old Mano- 
lis, one of the most trustworthy of our gang, was told 
off for the purpose. Somehow or other he fell asleep, 
but the wrathful Saint appeared to him in a dream. 
Waking with a start, he was conscious of a mysterious 
presence; the animals round began to low and neigh, 
and 'there were visions about'; '(^az^rafet/ he said, 
in summing up his experiences next morning, 'the 
whole place spooks.'"^ 

^ The Monthly Review, March, 1901, pp. 124-125. In the 
number for January, 1901, of the same magazine, see Mr. D. G. 
Hogarth's article on The Birth Cave of Zeus (pp. 49 ff.). Further 
details, in articles by these authors, and by Messrs. F. B. Welch 
and Duncan Mackenzie, are to be found in the Journal of Hellenic 
Studies (London), especially vols, xxi and xxii; also in the Annual 
of the British School at Athens. The most convenient synopsis 
of the whole subject, with the literature complete to date, is offered 
in The Discoveries in Crete and their hearing on the History of 
Ancient Civilization, Professor Ronald M. Burrows (London, 
1907). 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 95 

Dr. Evans embodies constructive criticism, Mano- 
lis naive presupposition. 

Accordingly, we may now ask. What is the his- 
torico-critical attitude? On the historical, side, this 
point of view teaches that man's spiritual life pre- 
sents an organic whole, governed by immanent 
principles peculiar to itself. Culture-history thus 
discloses its secret in an unbroken series of manifes- 
tations and, wherever the import of the process has 
been penetrated, a self-controlled unity has afforded 
satisfactory clews. No doubt, the differentiating 
principle that interpenetrates all continues to defy 
deepest plummet. To assert that its "stream of 
tendency" is 'necessary,' reduces the mystery not a 
whit. Nevertheless, we seem to see at least that the 
sole medium of the revelation is man himself. To 
adopt Tieck's phrase, civilization (in the sense of 
culture) possesses "its own centre, its own soul, as it 
were, from which the controlling spirit penetrates 
all parts, even the most remote." To reconstruct 
this synthetic activity is the aim of historical method. 
And, so far as the perplexing task has attained suc- 
cess, history has reconstituted itself, because it has 
proved to be a self-propelled growth. Thus, on the 
side of its larger setting, the historico-critical method 
turns out to be philosophical, and "is an endeavour 



96 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

to import unity and connexion into the scattered 
directions of cultural thought, to follow each of these 
directions into its assumptions and into its conse- 
quences." ^ 

The critical factor of the process differs little in 
temper and procedure from any other kind of sci- 
ence. In a word, it must be classed with ordinary 
inductive knowledge. By application of the inductive 
method to languages, literary documents, monuments, 
objects of art, pottery, traditions, and the like, con- 
trolled effort is put forth to elicit what they have to 
tell about themselves. The Egyptian monuments, 
the cuneiform inscriptions, the Vedas, palimpsest 
Mss., Thucydides's ''History of the Peloponnesian 
War," Xenophon's "Memorabilia," the contents of 
the New Testament, and so on, yield information 
about themselves whereby we arrive at a definite 
grasp upon what they were and imply. In all cases 
alike the same standards and processes apply. Thus 
scholars essay to set the materials in their real rela- 
tions and, by a consecutive system of checks and 
balances, to reduce them to consistency with them- 
selves and one another. In this manner they place 
men in a position to guard themselves against mis- 
conception, or naive inference, and deliver them 

^ Grundziige der Logik, H. Lotze, sec. 88 (ist ed.). 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 97 

from the substitution of preconceived belief or opin- 
ion for objective fact. As a result, explanation pre- 
cipitates itself from within the circle of the evidence, 
and extraneous interference becomes a superfluous 
hypothesis. The analytic exhibition of origins and 
concomitant conditions enables the expert to pass 
from individual cases to a synthesis of principles that 
holds valid universally for similar phenomena. The 
corrupt Hebrew, the imaginary history, and the apoc- 
alyptic fiction of Daniel, for example, prove the 
book a product of the Maccabaean epoch, just in the 
same way as Plato's language, and the development 
of his technical doctrine, throw light upon the order 
of the Dialogues. The exhibition of sources, that 
is, leads to an elucidation of credibility, scope, and 
significance. Pelops and Cadmus were the ancestors 
of the Greeks precisely as Abraham and Jacob of the 
Israelites. We have no more reason to believe that 
Plato took down the sayings of Socrates on the spot, 
and transcribed them in the 'Socratic' Dialogues, 
than that the Synoptists performed a like office for 
Jesus. Above all, both problems are to be settled 
by the exercise of identical discrimination, by the use 
of the same standards — there happens to be no other 
way. Results may diverge widely in detail, exactly as 
they do in the natural sciences, but the method of 



gS MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

approach and the attitude before the evidence must 
remain unchanged for all cases equally. 

"No Tyrian trader from the world shall hoard 
His splendour for salvation, no dismay 
Shall rant on flame-bursts, nor to element 
Resign the soul ! But something of a faith 
In understanding of a modem mood 
Shall mean God most in complications sprung 
Of fluxion, spring-life and the lift of earth 
Inevitable. And my theme shall be . . . 
Let the new creed afford right meaning for 
The creed rejected, let the new art show 
Old myth subordinant, old metaphor 
But outworn fact: thus, the new fact full truth. 

No sceptical dismay 
More, nor withdrawal from the market-place 
And sphere of high contention faith with faith ! 
Here is earth's wonderful sweet market-place 
Of blossoming contention — ' would my soul 
Had learn'd herself so as a world of men ! ' " 

We see, then, that the historico-critical movement 
is not encompassed with any sort of mystery. It 
amounts to an attempt on man's part to master the 
meaning of his own past by reference to principles 
that reach formulation only on the basis of exact 
inquiry, and complete loyalty to the canons of ordi- 
nary experience. Trace the phenomena to their 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 99 

historical origins, follow out their life career, and it 
will be found invariably that they suffice to sys- 
tematize themselves; the rest is conjecture. The 
identity, mutatis mutandis, between the relations of 
the 'Powers' of the Near East in the time of the 
Tel-el-Amarna "Letters," and those of the European 
'Powers' in our own day, is almost laughable. But, 
till criticism exploited the "Letters," and history 
drew the unavoidable inferences, this knowledge 
failed us.^ 

The materials, then, are, on the one hand, prob- 
lems to be solved ; on the other, ideas to be appre- 
ciated. The results garnered wield moral influence 
chiefly ; they are calculated to impress the will by al- 
tering one's attitude towards the enthralling drama 
of history. Nevertheless, as contrasted with the sci- 
entific consciousness, the historico-critical movement 
has remained more or less ^^ caviare to the general," 
and for evident reasons. It depends upon evidence 
difficult to glean, and still more difficult to master, 
so as to be able to interpret it. It appeals to fluid 
qualitative judgements rather than to practical (and 
therefore simple) quantitative standards. Most of 

^ An excellent description of the historico-critical method is to 
be found in vol. i of The Hexateuch, by J. Estlin Carpenter and 
G. Harford-Battersby (London, 1900). 



lOO MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

all, the social mind has never associated it with a 
rough-and-ready theory of the universe which, on 
account of its evident, if profound, implications for 
life, obtains widespread attention in print designed 
specially for the popular eye. And yet, as I have 
said, its thrust into the traditional views of religion 
is more radical by far. Let us look at this for a 
little, concentrating attention upon the biblical 
narratives and documents. 

I. Ancient History 

At the outset it is imperative to realize that we must 
slough all ideas of chronology, and of the pivotal 
importance of the "seed of Abraham," traceable to 
dogmatic opinions about the 'books of Moses.' 
According to these delusions, a period of 1656 
years intervened between the Creation and the Flood, 
of 290 years between the Flood and the birth of 
Abraham, of 720 years between the birth of Abraham 
and the Exodus — 2666 years altogether. Adam, 
and the other worthies who peopled these two and a 
half millennia, were conceived to be historical person- 
ages as a matter of course; nay, more, their careers 
were moulded by a tendency that proceeded from 
Yahweh in a series of special revelations. The Deity 
interposed directly, from time to time, to promote 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE lOI 

the welfare of Israel; in short, the universe was cre- 
ated with particular regard to Israel's mission ; univer- 
sal history circled round this vocation ; all else was 
subordinate. We are aware now that, while these 
pious recitals may serve to edification, their historical 
conspectus is totally untenable. The Creation, a 
sinless Adam in Paradise, the Fall, the confusion of 
tongues, and the rest, may remain passing good folk- 
lore ; they never happened in the course of culture- 
history. The chronology, that is, has no basis in fact, 
while the glamour that surrounds Israel amounts to a 
freak of late fancy playing upon legends relative to 
a mythical past. The truth, so far as ascertainable, 
tells a very different story. 

Take a map of western Asia and northeastern 
Africa, place a pair of nut-crackers upon it so that 
the hinge lies on the Gulf of Issus; now move the 
right-hand leg till it passes beyond the eastern shore 
of the Persian Gulf, covering Susa; move the left- 
hand leg till it coincides with the Nile valley and 
covers Thebes. The territory enclosed by this base- 
less triangle includes the biblical lands. Next, keep- 
ing the hinge steady, bring the right-hand leg down 
sharply, move the left-hand leg slowly about an inch 
— the line of pressure and contact will coincide with 
Palestine. The one movement indicates the fre- 



102 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

quent and rapid incursions into Palestine from the 
Euphrates-Tigris valley, the other the more leisurely 
and less frequent invasions from Egypt. Further, 
as compared with the sweep of the extended legs, the 
narrow line of junction denotes the relatively small 
geographical extent and importance of the Prom- 
ised Land. It is a tiny thing, squeezed continually 
between world-empires. Even for the brief period 
under David and Solomon, when the consolidated 
Israelitish territory became rather larger than 
Massachusetts, and when its 'world-power' ran from 
Kadesh and Damascus in the north to Beersheba 
and, possibly, Elath, on the Gulf of Akabah, in the 
south, it was never equipped to compete on equal 
terms with its mighty neighbours. Moreover, an 
Israel bounded on the north by Kadesh and Laish, 
on the south by Gaza and Rabbath Moab, was an 
ideal rather than a reality, the short time of Davidic 
prosperity aside. Indeed, so rapid was the decline 
after the blaze of glory that attracted the Sabaean 
queen, and enabled Solomon (as opinion still runs) to 
marry a Pharaoh's daughter, that, in 750 B.C., Israel's 
territory measured but one hundred miles from 
north to south, seventy-five from east to west; while 
little Judah, the eventual heir of the apocalyptic 
tradition, included just fifty square miles. What 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I03 

could they do against Assyria, or Babylon, or Egypt, 
against empires ruling, sometimes, 230,000 square 
miles of the richest country in that world? Little, 
except as their powerful enemies fell upon weakness, 
as in the days of Jeroboam II, or of the Hasmonaeans, 
when "the yoke of the heathen was taken away from 
Israel." 

This reversal of perspective regarding temporal 
importance finds parallel at least as transforming 
when we come to questions of chronology and the 
history of culture. It seems a far cry to the dawn of 
the Christian era. The obscure migration — one of 
several like it — whence the legendary personality 
of Abraham was precipitated, runs back from the 
first Christian century just about the same period as 
we date forward from it. And yet the exquisite 
silver vase of Entemena, the priest-king of Lagash, in 
southern Babylonia, transports us to a time nineteen 
hundred years before the Abrahamitic migration.^ 
Nevertheless, even Entemena was a modern man, if 
we grope to the first settlement of Eridu, the city of 
the god Ea, by the Sumerians, some 6500 b.c.^ 



^ Cf. Explorations in Bible Lands, H. V. Hilprecht, p. 241. 

^ Cf. Babylonians and Assyrians; Life and Customs, A. H. Sayce, 
p. 2. Professor Sayce's date is based upon the rate of alluvial 
deposit in the Persian Gulf from the time of Alexander. It should, 



I04 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Nay, when we quit history for myth, the Babylonian 
calculations put the bibhcal to utter shame. From 
the Creation to the Deluge ten kings reigned for 
432,000 years; from the Deluge to the Persian con- 
quest was an astronomical period of 36,000 years. 
But, without trenching upon myth, or calling atten- 
tion to the remarkable correspondence of the Baby- 
Ionian figures with the conclusions of modern science 
as to the age of man upon earth, the bare facts furnish 
food enough for reflexion. 

The people known to us as the Hebrews belonged 
to the Semitic stock which, as recent investigation has 
proved, played a foremost role in the development 
of human culture. While it is difficult to formulate 
the divisions of the race in a manner entirely satis- 
factory, any one of the several arrangements adopted 
by scholars serves to show wide extension, exceptional 
vitality, and primary importance. Thus, for ex- 
ample, the North Semites fall into four divisions, 
viz.: (i) Babylonian (Old Babylonian, Assyrian, 
Chaldaean) ; (2) Aramaean (Mesopotamian, Syrian) ; 
(3) Canaanitic (Canaanites, Phoenicians) ; (4) He- 
braic (Hebrews, Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites). 

perhaps, be stated that Eridu is said to have been on "the shore 
of the sea" in the reign of Dungi, son of Ur-en-Gur, cir. 3000. 
Cf. Orient. Lit. Zeitung, 1907, S. 583. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I05 

There were three groups of South Semites, viz,, 
(i) Sabagans, (2) Ethiopians, (3) Arabs.^ The for- 
tunes of the Hebrews form part and parcel of Semitic 
civihzation as a whole, and at a late period, compara- 
tively, in its development. So much so that, if we 
recall the picturesque story of Joseph, we must recog- 
nize many waves of migration from Arabia, not merely 
in subhistorical, but also in prehistoric, times. With 
these the '' chosen people" were intertwined inex- 
tricably, and they formed no exception to a very 
general rule. Causes operative elsewhere, and on a 
much larger scale, suffice to explain the recorded 
phenomena, when they have any historical basis. 

The course of events prior to the Exodus of Hebrew 
tradition may be outlined as briefly as possible. 
Apart from a general view of it, one cannot realize 
the import of later history and, very specially, adjust 
the focus. 

Old Babylonia was settled in remote days by a 
non-Semitic people, the Sumerians. They were city 
folk, and the city appears to have been the unit of 
government. The principal settlements of this pre- 
historic age were Eridu, on the Persian Gulf, Ur, 
some forty miles west on the Euphrates, and Nippur, 

^ Cf. History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, James Frederick 
McCurdy, vol. i, p. 19. 



Io6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

about eighty miles northwest, near the centre of the 
plain between the Euphrates and Tigris. When the 
first Semitic hordes migrated to this region is not 
known. At all events, in farthest historical times, 
and earlier, a Semitic culture had blossomed here 
already, and the Sumerians had become incorporated 
in a civilization which, though influenced profoundly 
by the older race, was Semitic in general character. 
From this cosmopolitan culture the first great empire 
of western Asia came forth. So early as S argon of 
Agade, Palestine ranked with other Babylonian prov- 
inces. His son, Naram-Sin, obtained, amongst other 
spoil, a vase of Egyptian alabaster, itself indicative 
of the extent of his conquests. Nor was it a crude 
civilization that penetrated to Palestine thus early. 
S argon's gem-cutters produced specimens of their 
art equal to the best work of later periods, and the 
bas-relief portrait of Naram-Sin rivals, if it does not 
surpass, the familiar masterpieces of Assyria two 
millennia after. Religion and law, government and 
commerce, had made distinct advances. Art had 
reached high development. The arch, so indispen- 
sable to large archievement in architecture, and sup- 
posed usually, until a recent date, to have been in- 
vented by the Romans about looo B.C., was used in 
Babylonia nearly 3000 years before this time. About 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I07 

2700 B.C., when Gudea was priest-king of Lagash, 
with Ur-Nina of Ur as suzerain, we find Palestine 
still under Babylonian domination, and this relation 
seems to have existed for at least two hundred years 
more. Then followed a second Arab migration, 
known as the Amoritic, which overflowed Hither 
Asia (including Palestine), South Arabia, and, 
possibly, Egypt. In 2225 B.C., we find a Semitic 
Pharaoh (Khyan) — a "lord of the desert," or chief 
of Beduin. These Amorites appear to have been 
absorbed by the populous Babylonia and Egypt, but 
in Palestine they maintained themselves as a separate 
people. After the disintegration of the Babylonian 
government resultant upon this incursion, the moun- 
taineers of Elam, to the northwest of the Euphrates- 
Tigris plain, who had doubtless suffered chastisement 
at the hands of their more progressive neighbours, 
saw their opportunity, and attacked the wealthy 
lowlanders, sacking Nippur, and scattering destruc- 
tion among the monuments of a civilization that had 
already wielded overlordship for the same period as 
Christianity has now ruled the Western world. The 
much disputed fourteenth chapter of Genesis may be 
a Palestinian reminiscence of this raid; if so, the 
emigration of Abraham was an incidental phenome- 
non in a widespread movement. But the Elamites 



Io8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

had to reckon with the Canaanite or Amorite invaders 
who thus preceded them. For from them sprang 
a dynasty whose main ornament was the famous 
juridical monarch, Hammurabi. According to the 
latest calculation, he reigned about 1900 B.C., that is, 
seven centuries before the Exodus. Under him 
Babylon became the metropolis of western Asia, and 
entered upon her wonderful career as the holy city of 
this vast region. As some think now, not Jerusalem, 
or Rome, but Babylon, was "the mother of us all." 
Hammurabi not only redeemed the old empire from 
the Elamite yoke, but restored its supremacy to the 
shores of the Mediterranean. It can hardly be 
doubted that some of the legislation to be found in 
the "Book of the Covenant" (Ex. xx. 22-xxiii. ;^;^; 
xxxiv. 11-26) was related closely to his great code, 
graven upon the black diorite pillar now in the 
Louvre. The dominion of Babylonia, thus rein- 
augurated by Hammurabi, was destined to last for 
four centuries. That Palestine prospered during 
this period, became, in fact, the " land flowing with 
milk and honey," we know from the Egyptian 
"Romance of Sinhuit." Agriculture and commerce 
flourished, civilization was accordant. 

Yet a third migration brought this period to an 
end, when the Kassites, a Tartar-like people from 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE lOQ 

central Asia, broke through Elam, and founded a 
dynasty in Babylon. In the same epoch a non-Semitic 
race, the Mitanni, carved out a kingdom on the head- 
waters of the Euphrates, and thus cut off Babylonia 
from her trade routes with western Asia. Syn- 
chronous with these movements was the successful 
invasion of Egypt by the Shepherd or Hyksos kings, 
who were Asiatics — possibly Semites, and who held 
rule in Palestine, after some sort, ere they over- 
whelmed Egypt, if Numbers xiii. 22 is to be cred- 
ited. It is within the bounds of possibility that the 
eponyms of the Exodus set out upon their wanderings 
in this era, as a wavelet in the general unrest. The 
net result, as concerns the present theme, was the 
decline of Babylonia, whose commerce waned, and 
the rise of Egypt, to freedom first, then to world- 
empire, after she had expelled the hateful foreigners. 
With Thebes as base, the seventeenth dynasty began 
the Hundred Years' War which, under Aahmes, the 
founder of the eighteenth dynasty, resulted in the 
final rout of the Hyksos. If contemporary records 
run true, the defeated Shepherds retired into Pales- 
tine. The Egyptian monarch was compelled to pur- 
sue as a matter of mere prudence, and, eventually, 
his countrymen gained an Asiatic empire to the 
Euphrates plain. This was achieved by Thothmes 



no MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

III (1493 B.C.), the mightiest of the Pharaohs, whose 
rule, assured at the battle of Megiddo in northwestern 
Palestine, extended over Upper and Lower Egypt, 
through the Sinaitic Peninsula and Palestine as far as 
Coele-Syria, thence south and east, including the old 
kingdom of Agade and Hammurabi, to the borders of 
Elam. Egyptian governors were placed in the con- 
quered provinces, to render administration perma- 
nent. Thothmes died two hundred years before the 
Exodus, and his rearrangement of the civilized world 
maintained itself for a century. Later antagonists of 
Egypt, like the Hittites and Assyrians, are on friendly 
terms with Amenhotep III, as the Tel-el-Amarna 
'* Letters" show. These letters, moreover, reveal the 
amazing fact that Babylonian civilization had become 
so engrained in Hither Asia that its language and 
script were the media of communication between 
educated people, and the sole proper form for diplo- 
matic correspondence between rulers. Not only the 
dwellers in the Euphrates-Tigris district, but the 
Hittites, Canaanites, and even the imperial Egyptians 
themselves, employ it. It stood to this period and 
provenance as French did to eighteenth-century 
Europe, and communication in the ancient epoch 
appears to have been as frequent, regular, and 
easy as in the modern. An excellent postal ser- 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE III 

vice, conducted probably by Beduin, was in 
existence. 

Religious dissension overtook Egypt in the next 
reign, and thereupon her power suffered decline. 
The Hittites descended upon Syria from the Taurus, 
and the Khabiri (probably another migration from 
Arabia) threatened Abd-khiba, the official who 
governed Jerusalem for the Pharaoh. The Hittite 
king, Sapalulu, made himself supreme to the north of 
Palestine, while Moab and Ammon, the ''children of 
Lot," came to bear rule in the southeast. Notwith- 
standing this pressure from two sides, the Canaanite 
strongholds in central Palestine seem to have main- 
tained themselves intact — a fact full of meaning. 
The fourth migration, the Aramseic, must be con- 
nected closely with the biblical legends of the pa- 
triarchs and their involuted domestic relations. This 
state of disorder in Palestine was ended by Sety I 
(1345 B.C.), v/ho reduced the country to vassalage 
once more, carrying his conquest as far as Lebanon. 
His son, Rameses II, the most famous of Pharaohs, 
continued this policy, and came into conflict with the 
Hittites. After twenty years of indecisive fighting, 
both powers negotiated a solemn treaty of alliance 
whereby Palestine remained to Egypt, Syria to the 
Hittites. Having married the daughter of Khate- 



112 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

sera, the Hittite monarch, Rameses spent the remain- 
der of his long reign in cultivation of the arts of peace. 
He blossomed into a great builder, using forced 
labour, like all Oriental potentates, and, in this con- 
nexion, took his place in biblical quasi-history as the 
''Pharaoh of the Oppression." When the "mixed 
multitude" of slaves — barbarians, as the Egyptians 
deemed them — fled into the desert, we do not know ; 
no details survive that suffice to throw any light upon 
the subject. But over and over again we must em- 
phasize the fact that it is only at this point in the 
tremendous panorama that Israel makes its first 
appearance on the stage, not of history, indeed, but 
of direct tradition. Whatever the Exodus may have 
been historically, the conditions for its occurrence 
eventuated between 1250 and 11 90 B.C., when Egypt 
lay in a condition of civil anarchy. The shepherds 
of Goshen, if they moved, left during this period, 
and their descendants, several generations later, 
arrived eventually in a land which had been highly 
civilized for two thousand years, and had undergone 
already a series of vicissitudes as dramatic as any 
that were to follow. 

Finally, about this period 2i fifth, and wholly differ- 
ent, migration took place. Driven from their main- 
land homes on the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece, 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE II3 

and probably from the iEgean Islands, by northern 
foes, these non-Semitic people fell upon Egypt, 
swarmed overland to Syria, or came by sea to the 
Palestinian coasts. This displacement may have 
synchronized with the final destruction of Minoan 
civilization in Crete. In any event, the Philistines, 
cast upon the shores of Palestine by it, were not an 
indigenous race, and it is at least an interesting specu- 
lation that they may have been descendants of the 
master-builders of Knossos. To this invasion the 
dissolution of the Hittite empire was due. In Egypt 
the intruders were unsuccessful, for Rameses II 
defeated them at sea off the Phoenician cities. Hav- 
ing thus secured herself, Egypt withdrew from inter- 
ference in Palestine for two hundred and seventy-five 
years. 

Evidently, then. Hither Asia had waxed very old 
ere Israel threw itself upon the southeastern limits of 
Palestine, so recently attacked on the west by the 
Philistines. And, be it noted, the entire history to 
this point, its awe-inspiring scale and its invocation 
of gods innumerable notwithstanding, has presented 
no abnormal, non-human, or supranatural features. 
Is there any reason to suppose that a sixth, and minor, 
migration of Arab nomads will not remain amenable 
to ordinary historical causes and racial characteristics? 



114 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

2. The Old Testament 

Having thus tried to realize that Old Testament 
times form but a fragment of Semitic civilization, to 
say nothing of ancient civilization as a whole, and 
that, according to present knowledge, the customary 
exclusion of this consideration results in a false per- 
spective, with its indefensible exaggeration of an 
episode, let us turn now to the Hebrews themselves. 

Confronted with the history of Israel, we discover 
at once that a grave disadvantage besets us. To 
those who have bestowed little or no attention upon 
the matter, the reason may well occasion profound 
surprise. In the nature of the case, the records that 
present the history of Babylonia, Egypt, and Assyria 
are the veritable originals for the most part. Further, 
they are often contemporary with the events related. 
Deeds from the offices of the great Babylonian bank- 
ers, the Egibi firm, and of their earlier colleagues, the 
house of Murashu, at Nippur, are in our hands, 
signed, sealed, and delivered on the occasions of the 
transactions which they detail. Besides, we are 
aware that editing in Babylonia — 

" was done with scrupulous care. Where a character 
was lost in the original text by a fracture of the 
tablet, the copyist stated the fact, and added whether 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE II5 

the loss was recent or not. Where the form of the 
character was uncertain, both the signs which it re- 
sembled are given. Some idea may be formed of the 
honesty and care with which the Babylonian scribes 
worked from the fact that the compiler of the Baby- 
lonian Chronicle, which contains a synopsis of later 
Babylonian history, frankly states that he does 'not 
know' the date of the battle of Khalule, which was 
fought between the Babylonians and Sennacherib. 
The materials at his disposal did not enable him to 
settle it." ' 

On the contrary, if Abraham be chosen as the 
starting-point, and if he were a contemporary of 
Hammurabi, Israelitish history runs more than 
eleven hundred years ere we come upon contempo- 
rary records approximately. And, when historical 
times are reached, the documents reveal interested 
editing ; not, indeed, the childish, vainglorious boast- 
ing of some Egyptian regal monuments, but a subtle 
evaluation, maximizing here, minim.izing there, and 
designed to produce a certain impression about the 
facts, not to reproduce the facts themselves. Briefly, 
a theory has been formulated, and by its authority 
the facts were adjusted. To overcome this prodigious 
initial difficulty has been one main task of modern 
scholarship. Small wonder! For, "over a thou- 

1 Babylonians and Assyrians, A. H. Sayce, p. 53. 



Il6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

sand years separate our earliest Hebrew manuscripts 
from the date at which the latest of the books con- 
tained in them was originally written." ^ Strange 
irony of fate, not to say strange oversight of an om- 
nipotent God respecting His own special revelation, 
that the official seals affixed to letters by the bureau- 
cracy of Sargon of Agade should have come down to 
us, while documentary evidence of, say, the ' prophe- 
cies ' of Isaiah is ''no earlier than the ninth century 
after Christ!"^ The fortunes of these precious 
works are known more or less generally from about 
270 A.D. ; prior to 200 B.C. conjecture reigns, becom- 
ing more and more vague as the years recede. What 
would we not give to-day for any portion of the Old 
Testament as it left the hands of the writer, especially 
if he could have shown something of the care be- 
stowed by the Babylonian scribe? So, instead of 
indestructible monuments, what have we? 

"There is one book of books that is generally re- 
garded as the most suitable of all for general and 
constant reading, the very best book: this is the 
Bible. Few books, however, prove so conclusively 
as does this that the bulk of mankind cannot read at 
all. The so-called Old Testament comprises, as is 

^ Our Bible and the Ancient Manuscripts^ Frederick G. Ken- 
yon, p. 35 (3d ed.). 
2 Ibid. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE II7 

well known, all that is left to us of the ancient Hebrew 
literature of a period of 800 years, together with some 
few books in Greek. It includes writings of the most 
various value and the most various origin, which 
have come down to us with text edited comparatively 
recently, often corrupt and marred in addition by 
endless copying, writings ascribed as a rule to men 
who never wrote them, nearly all difficult to under- 
stand, and demanding extensive historical knowledge 
in order to be read with the smallest profit." ^ 

Yet on this record, and often in ignorance or mis- 
apprehension of its nature, scope, and import, many 
would still have us stake our hope of salvation ! 

The Old Testament becomes unintelligible inevi- 
tably if, as is habitual, one mistake it for a mono- 
graph. Evidently it ought to be viewed as a library, 
the collected and edited remains of a literature origi- 
nated by a ''peculiar people" throughout a millen- 
nium. To unravel and systematize its historical 
relations is therefore an indispensable preliminary 
to any conclusion about its message and fundamental 
value. At present we must confine ourselves to a 
brief survey, directed chiefly to appreciation of the 
general situation and its results. 

At this point it were well to recall that the patri- 

^ Georg Brandes, in the International Quarterly ^ vol. xii, pp. 
278-279 (1906). 



Il8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

archs are legendary beings; that the story of Abra- 
ham's eventual migration to Egypt may be due, 
possibly, to editorial misconception — the place 
mentioned may be in the Sinaitic Peninsula, far 
removed from Egypt; that, as yet, we have no evi- 
dence of Israel's sojourn in Goshen; that, in any 
case, the Israel of David never could have been there, 
and that, therefore, the popular idea of the Exodus 
has no foundation in fact. Granted that the 'Exo- 
dus' took place about 1230 B.C., the remanent 
literature affords little or no record of events (myth, 
legend, and song aside) for a period of about four 
centuries; while the great age of composition falls 
in the 350 years between 750 and 400 B.C., subse- 
quent, that is, to a national consciousness of a special 
mission, in the interest of which the literature is 
enlisted, and the more ancient fragments embellished 
or reconstructed. Needless to say, this transitive, 
doctrinaire standpoint, were it not so evident, would 
render evaluation almost impossible. Fortunately, 
such slight pains have been taken at concealment that 
it affords positive aid. In other words, the literature 
could not have come into existence in its present form 
till after the national consciousness had crystallized, 
at least in the minds of the leaders. Accordingly, 
it has proved possible to map the main outlines of a 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE II9 

most tortuous process. The pivotal date is 621 B.C., 
when the Deuteronomic Law was ratified and en- 
forced by Josiah. So, for the present illustrative 
purpose, it may sufiice to consider the literature till 
Josiah. 

:^. By the unobservant manner in which he reads the 
Bible, the plain man justifies Brandes's assertion 
quoted above. Even in the English version, the Old 
Testament bristles with evidences of composite 
origin, yet few seem to take heed. The contrast 
between the two creation-myths in Genesis i and 
ii can hardly escape notice. But how many of you 
have observed such points as the following? What 
is the meaning of the inconsequential stuff in the first 
four verses of Genesis vi ? That is, what has been 
cut out deliberately ? Psalm xlv stands alone in the 
psalter; evidently it is a royal epithalamium. In 
Isaiah a break occurs at the fourth verse of the 
tenth chapter, and another at the end of the twelfth 
chapter. In Joshua xix. 47 and Judges i. 34 the 
same political condition is sketched. The hymn 
in I Chronicles xvi. 8-36 is extracted from the 
one hundred fifth, ninety-sixth, and one hundred 
sixth Psalms. In Joshua vi two accounts of the 
fall of the walls of Jericho have been welded ; and the 
same holds true of the story of the Egyptian plagues 



120 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in Genesis vii. 14-xi. 8. In Joshua xv. 13-19, 63; 
xvi. 1-3, 10; xvii. 1-2, 8-18, we have a representa- 
tion of the conquest of Canaan by individual prowess; 
even Joshua himself is the leader of the Joseph clan 
only, not of a united Israel ; that is, the main stand- 
point of the book as a whole is contradicted. Simi- 
larly, though now in a theological as contrasted with 
. a historical context, the sacrificial verses at the end of 
the exquisite fifty-first Psalm traverse the spirit that 
has touched the song to such fine issues. Or, to take 
but one other example, have you ever tried to separate 
thetwo self-contained, but mutually exclusive, stories 
of Joseph's sale into Egypt ? (Genesis xxxvii, xxxix- 
xl.) According to one tale, Joseph's brethren hate 
him, because he has visions which foretell his superior- 
ity. When he visits them at the grazings, they decide 
to kill him. Reuben dissuades them, and they cast 
him into a disused cistern, whence Reuben expects to 
rescue him privily. Midianites steal him away, and 
sell him to Potiphar, the governor of the prison. Here 
it is his duty to act as attendant upon two privileged 
prisoners. He tells their dreams for them, and asks 
them to remember him with Pharaoh, informing the 
'butler' that he has been stolen from his homeland. 
According to the other tale, Joseph's brethren hate 
him, because he is the favoured son, who has received 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 121 

a gannent significant of princely rank. When he 
visits them at the grazings, they decide to kill him. 
Judah dissuades them, and they sell him to a group 
of Ishmaelites. The Ishmaelites sell him to an 
anonymous person in Egypt, who has a wife. For the 
sake of Joseph's god, Yahweh, this person prospers. 
The wife slanders Joseph, and he is thrown into 
prison, where, thanks once more to Yahweh, he ingra- 
t'ates himself with the governor. Plainly, two legends 
hcve been united here, and both cannot be true. 
Th^se examples, then, may serve to indicate the 
com].osite character of the documents as they have 
descended to us. And, when we come to consider 
the liten' ture before Josiah, this fact assumes para- 
mount imj.ortance. 

In the first Dlace, the larger portion of the material 
is anonymous. The authors of the following are 
known, viz. : Amos, Hosea, Isaiah i-xxxvii 
(but chapters xii. 2--xiv. 22; xxi. i-io; xxiv-xxvii; 
xxxiv-xxxv were wnten subsequent to Josiah), 
Nahum, Micah i-vii. 6, Habakkuk, and Zeph- 
aniah. For the rest, we are forced to conclude 
that the documents present the most complex 
character. Myth and legend in the form of epos, 
song, hero-saga, fable, proverb, precept, folklore, 
primitive custom, clan and domestic law, rhapsody, — 



122 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

all contribute their respective shares.^ Lost collec- 
tions, like the Book of Jashar and the Book pf 
the Wars of Yahweh, are quoted. Throughout, 
evidences of compilation, readjustment, and repeated 
revision abound. At the same time, it has been 
discerned, after laborious examination, that these 
literary phenomena offer no exceptional or unparal- 
leled features. Consequently, historical criticism, 
in the hands of its most accomplished exponents, he's, 
been able to reach certain definite findings. FOr, 
all things considered, one can agree that "the battle 
over the Old Testament is as good as ended.'* 
Opinion may, and does, differ about many ^letails; 
for example, was the ashera a tree or p^»le, or a 
goddess? But, on the broad general ''jtline, the 
conclusions are accepted even by co^iservative in- 
vestigators. The cumulative nature of the evidence 
admits of no other result. 

The remainder of the early literature, then, con- 
sists, in the main, of three c'.ocuments, known re- 
spectively as the Jahvist, the Elohist, and the 
Deuteronomist ; the last belongs to the period of 
Josiah. During the exile, a fourth author, the 

^ Students of the Old Testament would do well to compare 
similar phenomena in the Iliad, e.g., the famous catalogue of 
ships, the injuries wrought by the gods in bk. v (385 f.), and 
the long interpolations from the Corinthiaca in bk. vi. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 1 23 

Priestly Writer, interposed; and, posterior to the 
exile, there was a final redaction of the whole material, 
from a standpoint akin to that of the Priestly Writer. 
As always, the older records excel in spontaneity. 
While it cannot be said that "J" (the document 
which uses the name Yahweh for God) and " E" 
(which employs the term ''Elohim") accord com- 
pletely in outlook, they do not fall under the domi- 
nation of an elaborate theory, like the Priestly 
W^riter. More than aught else, they regard religion 
as a natural incident of human life, whereas their 
successors suffer from self-consciousness of its divine 
institution, and spread through exclusive channels 
of revelation. Besides, the redactors attain to 
authorship in the current sense of this term; their 
predecessors are rather reporters (of story-tellers 
and rhapsodes) , or collectors of material that was still 
fluid in oral tradition. Thus, it is easy to distinguish 
the Deuteronomist and the Priestly Writer from ''J" 
and "E," difficult to separate "J" from "E," some- 
times impracticable. 

The material grouped in these two earliest docu- 
ments, which may be said to date from 850 to 750 B.C., 
in their first unified forms respectively, often goes 
behind them, refers to very different situations, of 
which few accurate details are now recoverable, and 



124 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

is certainly of most unequal value. But, on the whole, 
and throughout, we find ourselves in an atmosphere 
controlled by imagination. Poetry, not historical 
truth, dictates the norms. Not till Israel had actually 
won foothold in Canaan, can it be said that history 
tends to replace tradition. For example, the stories 
of the Creation and the Flood are myths, pure and 
simple ; moreover, they pertain to the Semitic race, 
not to the Hebrew moiety of it. In the passage con- 
taining Lamech's 'Song of the Sword' (Gen. Iv. 
19 f.) we have obviously a very primitive tale, and a 
fragment of admirable poetry. Lamech's sons are 
represented as the fathers of all nomadic shepherds, 
musicians, and workers in iron. How this could be, 
if all perished in the Flood, except Noah, the farmer, 
the writer takes no notice. Attracted by the poetry, 
he is satisfied to adopt the folk tale. The ' Song of 
the Weir (Num. xxi. 17) introduces another ancient 
fragment, which a people livi^ig in settled society 
could scarcely appreciate. Of a different character 
is the 'Triumph Song' of Deborah and Barak 
(Judges v). Here we have a paean of victory that 
may well revert to a historical occurrence during the 
first invasion of Canaan. Of the same kind are 
David's 'Elegies' over Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 
1 7 f .) and on Abner (2 Sam. iii. ^^) . They belong 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 1 25 

quite plainly to the class of poems made effective by 
access of emotion, that is, they come of flesh and blood. 
Other ancient documents may be noted in Jotham's 
'Fable' (Judges ix) ; Samson's 'Riddles' (Judges 
xiv. 14; XV. 16) ; David's decision regarding the spoil 
(i Sam. XXX. 24); the 'Proverbs' in i Sam. x. 11, 
and xxiv. 13. Of still another sort are the cycles 
of stories (often exhibiting traces of rearrangement 
and interpolation) relating to the patriarchs, to 
Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and so on; or the hero- 
tales, about Samson and the youthful David, for 
instance. The former limn types, constructed from 
tribes or clans; the latter emphasize achievements 
of men whose lives fell within the penumbra of the 
historical period, but set them in a legendary, almost 
epic, perspective. While, again, the fragment in 
Genesis vi. 1-4, introducing the Titans (Nephilim), 
harks back to a stage of religion so remote that the 
narrator has lost all sense of its implications.^ This 
example may serve as a warning, to be kept in mind 

^ Something of the same kind may be traced in that complex 
document, the "Blessing of Jacob" (Genesis xlix), if, as some think, 
it is reminiscent of a religion in which the signs of the zodiac 
played a prominent part. (Joseph is Sagittarius, Dan is Scorpio, 
and so on). Even if. this be tenable, it is perfectly obvious that 
the writer knew nothing about it, never had such possibilities in 
mind. 



126 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

constantly, that the documents under consideration 
often tell very little, because their authors do not 
themselves appreciate their material. Thus Ishmael, 
Moab, Rachel, Leah,^ Hagar, and so forth, are not 
persons, but the names of clans or districts. Simi- 
larly, Asher, Gad, Milcah, Sarah, and, probably, 
Laban, are names, not of men and women, but of 
gods and goddesses. Of course this amounts to a 
statement that the documents, instead of furnishing 
a straightforward history, raise numerous and com- 
plex problems. Thus, for instance, it has been sug- 
gested that the story of Jacob's encounter with the 
angel is a very faint reminiscence of the Nephilim. 
Jacob was a Titan once, and could do titanic things. 
Now he has become a mere man, but with this sur- 
vival from his mythical past which, naturally, his 
present biographer fails to comprehend. However 
this may be, it is quite evident that the literature 
before Josiah offers legend chiefly; and the his- 
torical parts, post-dating Israel's settlement in 
Canaan, and going back scarcely beyond Saul or 
David, have been subjected to a process of idealiza- 

* As in the case cited in the previous note, Rachel and Leah 
suggest a totemism from which meaning has faded utterly for 
the writer. In other words, we are at a late stage in the develop- 
ment even of Semitic religion, to say nothing of universal religion. 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 1 27 

tion and reconstruction; so, they too contain a large 
imaginative factor. 

Accordingly, the conclusion of the matter, as 
concerns the early literature, may be summed up 
as follows. Prior to the Exodus we know nothing; 
and the actors mentioned must be viewed as legendary 
figures. The sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, and the 
migrations in the wilderness were all subjects of a 
persistent tradition in Israel. Very possibly they 
may have foundation in fact; if so, what did happen 
differed in essentials from much alleged in the nar- 
rative. Nevertheless, the story, as we have it, by the 
light it throws upon Semitic customs, helps us to 
arrive at a sober view of the probable events. Even 
Moses must be taken, in great part, as a legendary, 
in some part, as a mythical, figure. His career and 
acts conform to certain well-understood social and 
religious characteristics of Semitic nomad clans, 
and, to this extent, can be rediscovered and systema- 
tized. ^ Beyond this general setting we possess no 
real knowledge of Moses, who was, not a man, but 
an idealized epitome thrown back by a later age 
upon a supposititious heroic past, its own creation. 

^ It is a commonplace that, for centuries after Moses' alleged 
date, the Hebrews shared the polytheism of adjacent "Semitic 
heathenism." Cf. A Sketch of Semitic Origins, George A. Barton. 



128 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

And after the conquest of Canaan had begun, and 
ended, so far, the same traits persist. David, a 
brigand sheik originally, is clothed upon imagina- 
tively till he actually becomes a vicegerent of Yahn-^h. 
Or, in his relation of the narrative, the -sympathies 
of the author, with the northern or southern kingdom, 
as the case may be, transform the circumstances. 
Briefly, as in ancient literature universally, so here, 
nobody knows anything of origins, and, when history 
begins, the writers evince elementary conscience 
for accuracy. Subjective views as to what the facts 
ought to have been render an objective report im- 
possible. In the circumstances, nothing else could 
be anticipated; and Israel is no exception to the 
normal human rule, nay, affords another, and very 
impressive, proof. 

Nothing in the Old Testament has fallen so hope- 
lessly upon the evil fate of false representation as 
the prophetic literature. The prophets, from Elijah, 
and even Samuel, to the author of Daniel, were 
riven from their historical position, deported to a 
Hellenistic provenance, and tricked out in every de- 
vice of unlicenced phantasy. As a matter of fact, 
the Hebrew prophet was a man who could discern 
the signs of the times, rate temporal events at their 
value sub specie ceternitatis, and speak to his genera- 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE 1 29 

tion accordingly. There is no doubt that he believed 
himself accredited to deliver a special message; but 
he spoke as he knew and, very specially, as he felt, 
in a certain contingency. Thus his work always 
faced two ways. On the one hand, he had a clear 
eye for the contemporary circumstances of his people ; 
on the other, an intuition for the significance of re- 
ligion, as affected by these circumstances, and as 
capable of reaction upon them. Consequently, the 
prophetic books are of inestimable price for compre- 
hension at once of the civil history and the religious 
evolution of the Hebrews in these days. By this 
relation they must be judged and interpreted. 

After Solomon's death, the Hebrew empire under- 
went immediate dissolution; the division into two 
kingdoms, Israel in the north, and Judah in the 
south, dates from 937 B.C. This event wrought 
momentous results in two ways. It undermined 
the political strength of the Hebrews once for all, 
and, by the isolation of the northern kingdom from 
the incipient religious primacy of Jerusalem, origi- 
nated conditions favourable to the continuance of 
heathenism within Israel itself. Not long after 
their foundation, both kingdoms were plundered 
by the powerful Pharaoh Shishak, Judah suffering 
more severely. This, with the growth of commerce 



130 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in Israel, led to the dominance of the northern king- 
dom, and Judah made alliance with Damascus. 
Meanwhile a new political situation was eventuating 
in the Euphrates-Tigris region, where the power 
of Assyria was maturing surely. Ashumatsirpal III 
had felt strong enough to attack the Aramaeans on 
the head waters of the Euphrates, and, in 876, took 
Carchemish, the capital of the attenuated Hittite 
kingdom. This was contemporaneous with the 
rise of the house of Omri to ascendancy in Israel, 
when Samaria became the capital; and Ahab, the 
monarch of this dynasty notorious unjustly to us, 
reigned from 874 B.C. Under this house Judah 
was reduced to vassalage. In the interval, the As- 
syrians, under Shalmaneser II, had been engaged 
with Damascus, which headed a coalition against 
them. Ahab contributed no less than 2000 chariots 
and 10,000 men. After the indecisive battle of Qar- 
qar, in 852, he loosed himself from this league, and, 
about the same period, the advance guard of another 
great migration from Arabia (the Nabataean) instilled 
fresh ambition into Edom and Moab. This is the 
era in which the prophet Elijah rebukes the idolatry 
of Israel, and Elisha proves himself a dangerous 
agitator. Thrice Shalmaneser attempted to break 
Damascus, and failed; while Judah, weakened by 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I3I 

the drain of men and treasure required from a vassal 
state, fell a prey to a Philistine-Cushite alliance, thus 
affording Mesha, king of Moab, opportunity to regain 
independence. Instigated by Elisha, Jehu murdered 
the whole house of Omri, except young Joash, and, 
by 842, was tributary to Assyria. But, occupied 
with the Armenians nearer home, Assyria retired for 
a time, and, in 810, Joash is a vassal of Damascus. 
Again the Assyrian advanced, Damascus yielded 
tribute, and "the Lord gave Israel a saviour, so that 
they went out from under the hands of the Syrians " 
(2 Kings xiii. 5). These centuries of unbroken 
confusion, of thrust and counterthrust, could not 
have been favourable to high internal development. 
It is not surprising, then, that written prophecy 
does not arise till later, till a time, that is, when the 
Hebrews could rest long enough to consider their 
position. From 799 B.C. events bear less harshly 
upon the twin kingdoms. Jehoash is strong enough 
to worst Benhadad II, and Amaziah to take the 
Edomite capital. By 784 Jeroboam II and Uzziah, 
both energetic and successful rulers, have come to the 
thrones of Israel and Judah respectively. The two 
countries now attain a prosperity unexampled since 
the spacious days of David and Solomon. Damascus 
has been broken, and Assyria is too engrossed else- 



132 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

where to interfere. Just at this juncture the full 
tide of Hebrew prophecy begins to flow. 

Amos makes his startling and disconcerting ap- 
pearance, to warn the people that luxurious, easy- 
going, almost materialistic worship cannot please Yah- 
w6h., and must tumble to disaster. The God is a just 
God, who hates evil, loves good, and wills to establish 
judgement within the gate. Forget this, his funda- 
mental character, and you prove yourself a dupe 
to the mere external show of stability. The real 
fact is that Yahweh reigns wherever justice runs, 
and admits no special obligation, even to Israel, 
if injustice flourish within the border. Thus, the 
monotheistic view attains definite expression only at 
this late day. The idea received further develop- 
ment in the message of Hosea, for whom God is love, 
and from whose pathetic conviction the iuture faith 
of Israel sprouts. Jeroboam II died in 744: in the 
short space of eight months, Zechariah and Shallum 
were murdered and Menahem set on the throne — 
a barbarous despot. Israel was rent by faction, 
and Menahem became tributary to Assyria. Mean- 
while Judah prospered under Jotham. Faction 
wrought further anarchy in Israel; Menahem' s 
son, Pekahiah, was murdered, and Pekah, an as- 
syrophobe, ruled. He leagued himself with Damascus 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I33 

against Tiglathpileser III, and tried to force Judah 
into the alliance. Refusing, Judah was invaded, and, 
brought to dire straits by the rebellion of Edom 
and an invasion of the Philistines, appealed to As- 
syria. Tiglathpileser advanced to the rescue, and 
plundered Israel. Pekah was murdered by his own 
people, and Hoshea, who succeeded, accepted As- 
syrian suzerainty. In 732 Tiglathpileser took Da- 
mascus, deported its inhabitants, and Palestine enjoyed 
peace for six years. On the accession of Shalmaneser 
IV, in 727, Israel joined a Syrian league in revolt, 
and, in 722, the northern kingdom came to an end, 
on the fall of Samaria, and the deportation of the 
directing classes. Israel was now an Assyrian pro- 
vince, Judah a vassal state. These were the days 
of the mighty Sargon and of the mightier Isaiah. 
Isaiah's whole outlook was conditioned by the 
contemporary political situation. Israel had become 
a memory now, and Judah might be snuffed out 
unceremoniously at any moment. To comprehend 
this astounding shock to Hebrew expectation and 
reminiscence, a new philosophy of history was needed ; 
to weather temporal danger with a whole skin de- 
manded a practical poHcy. Isaiah furnished both. 
Stated in a word, the former pivots on the idea that 
judgement is not the goal, but the prerequisite of 



134 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

salvation. This, as Isaiah thought, the people must 
be forced to grasp, so that a remnant, if no more, 
might be preserved to witness for essential spiritual 
truth. On the practical side, Assyria is to him but 
a tool in the hands of the Almighty ; therefore, v^ith 
Assyria Judah must keep strict faith. Mount Zion, 
w^here Yahweh dwelleth, cannot be violated, must 
stay inviolable. Heedless of the prophet, Hezekiah 
listened to Egypt. In 701 Sennacherib descended 
v^ith a veteran army, overwhelmed the Egyptians, 
and decimated Judah, deporting more than 200,000 
souls. Nevertheless, Jerusalem stood, and Isaiah 
was justified to such an extent that Hezekiah purified 
the worship of the temple from much idolatrous 
admixture. Their contemporary, Micah, an old- 
time idealist of the Amos type, poured the awful 
vials of his wrath upon this same idolatry, especially 
upon the social conditions wherein it rooted. Then 
prophecy fell upon silence. The Assyrian guarantee 
was to suffice for a little, and the Assyrian gods ! 

In the brilliant era of Esarhaddon and Assurbani- 
pal, when Assyria lorded it from the mountains of 
Van to the Nile, Judah could hardly fail to be a mere 
enclave in the magnificent empire. And, from 686 
B.C., when Manasseh came to the throne, it proved so. 
The gods of Assyria became the gods of the Hebrew 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I35 

remnant, and prophecy, being a plain nuisance, was 
stamped out fiercely. The sixth and seventh chapters 
of Micah refer to this leaden period. All external 
supports and encumbrances having vanished, the 
writer appeals to the still, small voice, lending proph- 
ecy the purest expression yet attained. "He hath 
showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth 
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to 
love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" 
(vi. 8). No Hebrew speaks here to a backsliding 
folk, but a man utters an imperishable thing to hu- 
manity. That world has passed long, long ago, 
with the pride and the lust thereof, leaving scarce 
a wrack behind, but these words ring down the ages, 
as absolutely true to-day as in the sad hours of their 
first utterance. Never was a man's sense for ultimate 
values to be vindicated more thoroughly. Assyria's 
doom dogged her already. Another widespread 
displacement was in process, this time in Central 
Asia — the Scythian horsemen had saddled. The 
Dies Irae of Zephaniah (i. 14 f.) neared dawn, judge- 
ment had been entered against Manasseh's line and 
sin. Nahum and Habakkuk divine the catastrophe 
of proud, cruel Assyria. "The burden of Nineveh" 
(Nah. i. i) ; "shall he not spare to slay the nations 
continually?" (Hab. i. 17.) Jeremiah, the inter- 



136 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

cesser with Yahweh for his own erring people, also 
appears in the land. And by 620 B.C. the Scythians 
have swept past Nineveh, and swarmed into the 
littoral of Palestine. 

Manasseh had died in 647, and after Amon's mur- 
der, at the end of a two years' reign, the child Josiah 
had been placed on the throne. In his minority, 
under the assyrophile court clique, idolatry went 
from bad to worse. At length the pietistic party 
ventured to send a book of the law, discovered in 
the temple, to the king, now a youth of twenty-four, 
whom it moved profoundly.^ This document, our 
Deuteronomy, marked a fresh epoch in Hebrew 
religion. A new worship, centralized at Jerusalem, 
and a new god almost, who bore no natural relation 
to this present evil world, were introduced. Religion 
was evaporated from its intimate union with the 
body of the civil state, and set apart as a holy essence. 
A point of view had come to clear consciousness, 
whence the entire past of Israel could be considered 
and reinterpreted : lights could be heightened, shad- 
ows deepened, according to a firmly set belief in a 
peculiar, divine purpose. The prophet had blazed 

^ His reference of the matter to the spae-wife Huldah is typical 
of the conceptions of science at that time (cf. 2 Kings xxii. 
12, 2 Chronicles xxxiv. 20 f.). 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I37 

the way for the priest. Issues most momentous 
for the preservation of the religion of Israel, no 
matter what temporal mischances might befall, 
were settled at nigh a stroke. With this reversal, 
an outgrowth of Assyrian success, and of a reaction 
against heathen customs when the political power 
of the conqueror declined, the literature to Josiah 
ends. 

Josiah's new-bom devotion to Yahweh, coincident 
with the removal of the Assyrian yoke, profited him 
little. The Pharaoh Necho invaded the land; the 
righteous king met defeat and death in another fight 
at Megiddo, that cockpit of Palestine. The last 
scene in this act of the drama ended in even worse 
disaster; for the Chaldaean, Nebuchadnezzar, now 
monarch of the new Babylonian empire which suc- 
ceeded Assyria, took Jerusalem by storm, in 586 B.C., 
and on three several occasions the flower of the popu- 
lation was deported to the Euphrates-Tigris valley, 
there to learn much from Babylonian and Persian 
civilization. 

It seems superfluous to enforce the conclusion 
that, as a result of the historico-critical method, the 
traditional conceptions of the "mission of Israel," 
of the nature of the Old Testament, and of the rela- 
tion of Jewish religion to Christianity, 



138 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

" Are melted into air, into thin air , . . 
. . . like the baseless fabric of " a " vision." 

Doubtless, it is still possible to flout the critic, and say, 
"he's of a most facinerious spirit." But, whatever 
his reputed atrocities, names neither hurt, nor alter 
the facts. One of the most spiritually minded of 
living scholars, a man persuaded slowly, by stress 
of evidence, to pass from supposition to knowledge, 
has placed himself on record as follows : — 

"And now I must make an admission to you, which 
it is hard for me to make, but which is my fullest 
scientific conviction, based upon the most cogent 
grounds, that in the sense in which the historian 
speaks of "knowing," we know absolutely nothing 
about Moses. All original records are missing; 
we have not received a line, not even a word, from 
Moses himself, or from any of his contemporaries: 
even the celebrated Ten Commandments are not 
from him, but, as can be proved, were written in 
the first half of the seventh century, between 700 
and 650 B.C. The oldest accounts we have of Moses 
are five hundred years later than his time." * 

This, and much like it, being admitted unavoidably, 
the keystone has fallen from the arch of the impressive 
and imperious theological construction: we have 
not "Moses to father." In these circumstances, 

^ C. H. Cornill, in The Prophets of Israel, p. 17 (Eng. trans.). 



BREACHES OF THE HOUSE I39 

but a single moral need be pointed. The ignorant 
and the dogmatic, be they laity or clergy, cannot 
learn too soon that, as matters stand, scholarship 
alone is able to reply to scholarship. A complete 
transformation has overtaken us, and the sole course 
is to face the judgement without reservation. This 
at least spells sincerity — always a firm ally of safety 
when the final reckoning arrives. 

In the nature of the case, I have been able to 
furnish only the merest impressionistic sketch of the 
historico-critical attitude to the Old Testament. 
Nevertheless, it suffices to convey a very definite set 
of inferences. 

Note. — The following works are readily available for readers 
of English who wish to pursue the subject farther. A History 
of Egypt, J. H. Breasted; History of Babylonia and Assyria, H. 
Winckler and J. A. Craig ; The Early History of Syria and Pales- 
tine, L. B. Paton; An Introduction to the Literature of the Old 
Testament, S. R. Driver (Scribner, New York) ; The Genesis 
of Genesis, B. W. Bacon; Triple Tradition of the Exodus, B. W. 
Bacon (Macmillan Co., New York) ; The Documents of the 
Hexateuch (two vols.), W. E. Addis (David Nutt, London) ; 
The Legends of Genesis, H. Gunkel (Open Court Co., Chicago) ; 
the Old Testament Articles in the Encyclopcedia Biblica (Macmil- 
lan Co.), or in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (Scribner). 



LECTURE IV 

HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 

Divergent opinions on minor points, and on several 
important internal problems, such, for example, as 
the origin and organization of the Psalter, admitted, 
it may be affirmed, fairly enough, that scholars agree 
on their solution of the Old Testament riddle. The 
historico-critical movement has triumphed all along 
the line here. Still, even so, many, especially in 
English-speaking lands, fondle the idea that New 
Testament study walks the old paths, and that thus, 
criticism notwithstanding, the citadel of dogmatic 
Christianity maintains itself inviolable. But when 
one comes to inquire what the leaders of the his- 
torico-critical movement have to record about the 
Christian sacred books, one discovers very soon that 
this confidence lacks solid foundation. So much so 
that "the inhabitant of Maroth" may well wait 
'' anxiously for good : because evil is come down . . . 
unto the gate of Jerusalem." Moreover, his per- 
plexity must increase when he reflects upon a fact 
that events often conspire to hide from him. Doubt- 
less he has heard, in a general way, of the *' attack on 

140 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST I41 

the New Testament," and his teachers, true to a 
sadly mistaken sense of duty, have informed him 
that all this amounts to 'scepticism.' It were perti- 
nent, therefore, to set in the forefront that critical 
discussion of the New Testament is no more identical 
with 'scepticism' to-day than the conclusions of the 
scientific consciousness are indistinguishable from 
' materialism.' For the main volume of this inquiry 
proceeds from Christian scholars, from members of 
the Christian ministry as a rule. These investigators 
seek a more adequate knowledge of the growth and 
development of faith in Christ. Above all, they de- 
sire to strip our religion of accretions from non- 
Christian sources, and to trace the transformations 
wrought by this admixture. In addition, we must 
call to mind that the natural concentration of New 
Testament study in the hands of professing, and 
often official. Christians, has resulted in a situa- 
tion far different from 'scepticism,' or anything 
that, in common justice, can be termed 'scepti- 
cism.' Indeed, the chief preliminary consideration 
issues from this very circumstance. 

3. The New Testament 

The Old Testament contains the socio-religious 
record of an alien race, of a people whose faith is not 



142 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ours, who continue strangers to several transitive 
principles that permeate the Christian consciousness 
through and through. Accordingly, it may be 
treated with a certain independence and objectivity 
possible with respect to the New Testament only at 
the end of long, tentative trial, involving bitter 
conflict. Moreover, in the one case far more easily 
than in the other, the scholar rids himself of the 
iteration of the still, small voice that whispers. What 
is left ? With incomparably less inhibition, he finds 
himself able to ask. What have we here? As a 
consequence, the historico-critical account of the 
Old Testament possesses a clear outline, and com- 
mands a general assent by no means reached as yet 
for the New. Particularly is this true about those 
matters of apparent detail which in sum, despite 
their subordinate character, afl^ect the larger outlook 
deeply. An Episcopalian, just because he is an 
Episcopalian; a Presbyterian, just because he is a 
Presbyterian; a Baptist, just because he is a Baptist; 
a Roman Catholic, just because he is a Roman Cath- 
olic, approaches the New Testament with special pre- 
possessions on special points. Similar considerations 
touch Old Testament inquiry much less; on the 
contrary, they conspire to prejudge interpretation of 
the New. Besides, all confessional Christians, so 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 43 

far as their "written constitutions" go, agree to view 
the New Testament from a doctrinal rather than 
a historical standpoint. Needless to say, this fact 
has wielded, and still wields, incalculable influence. 
Thus, for many causes that we cannot expect to es- 
cape yet awhile, the Christian books must remain 
subjects of controversy; differences bom of senti- 
ment must occupy the foreground, very likely out of 
proportion to their primary importance ; views upon 
matters of fact must continue to be tinctured with 
conjectural elements. 

No better illustration of these obvious conditions 
could be wished than the reception accorded, eleven 
years ago, to Harnack's famous preface,^ where he 
affirmed that criticism was moving back gradually 
to ''traditional standpoints." Excitement electrified 
many; one heard on every side that Strauss and 
Tubingen had been put to ruinous flight, that the 
position had been saved for the entire array of eccle- 
siastical dogma. On the other hand, one did not 
hear that, on close examination in detail, the con- 
clusions of the Berlin master agreed with those of 
criticism on nigh all points of fundamental im- 
portance. For him, as for the "evicted" critics, the 

^ Prefixed to vol. i, part ii, of his Chronologie der altchrisU 
lichen Liter atur. 



144 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

author of the First Gospel was unknown ; the author- 
ship of the Third was ''purely a problem of internal 
criticism," and therefore a matter of opinion more or 
less; the Apostle John was not the author of the 
Fourth Gospel, and so on. Commenting on this, 
one of the sanest among New Testament critics 
says: "To me, however, this new cult for the 'tradi- 
tion ' — by which, as a matter of fact, Hamack 
understands something quite different from the 'tra- 
dition ' of Zahn ^ and his followers — seems quite as 
questionable as the earlier prejudice against it." ^ 
And Harnack himself supports this contention in the 
preface to a recent study. "I saw myself brought 
forward as a witness to testify that in historical criti- 
cism we are returning to the conservative point of 
view. I am not responsible for this misapprehen- 
sion of my position. . . . Let me, therefore, express 
now my absolute conviction that historical criticism 
teaches us ever more clearly that many traditional 
positions are untenable and must give place to new 
and startling discoveries." ^ We may conclude, ac- 
cordingly, that although, thanks to peculiar and 
irremovable circumstances besetting the inquiry, 



^ The most prominent conservative critic. 

^ An Introduction to the New Testament, A. Jiilicher, p. 27. 

^ Preface to Lukas der Arzt (written in May, 1906). 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 45 

some New Testament questions, particularly as 
they pertain to specialized problems, stand in con- 
troversy, a partial consensus begins to emerge. 
Without condescending upon extreme positions, let 
us try to understand what this conveys. 

In the first place, and generally, the New Testa- 
ment cannot be treated as a hook. It contains a 
literature composed at intervals during a period of 
130 years approximately. Twenty-seven contribu- 
tions, of the most varied character, occur in it. We 
know that they were written by ten or twelve persons 
at the lowest calculation; but how many others had 
a hand in the library as it exists now we have no 
present means of determining. It is apposite to 
recall in this connexion, for example, that the canon 
of four Gospels was probably substituted for one 
Gospel under suspicious circumstances, and that one 
document, in any case, was subjected to mutilation 
for reasons that had nothing to do with its historical 
value. As they stand in our English Bible, the New 
Testament writings disregard chronological sequence, 
and this in itself has produced numerous misconcep- 
tions. Of course, interpolations, additions, and cor- 
rections are nowhere indicated, so that he who runs 
may read. It is clear, however, that, taking 46 a.d. 
as an upper, and 175 a.d. as a lower, limit, the con- 

L 



146 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

stituent portions were produced much in the same 
way as other human documents. They reflect one 
religious movement among many, but a movement 
pecuHar on account of its intensity, its missionary 
spirit, and its powerful syncretist tendency; never- 
theless, a movement that originated and spread under 
historical conditions characteristic of the Roman 
Empire at the time, especially as they related (i) to 
the region of Asia Minor, including Palestine, (2) to 
the Jewish Diaspora, (3) to the promiscuous religious 
consciousness, marked by elements drawn from 
Hellenistic thought, Jewish theocracy, and Oriental 
apocalyptic vision, all interacting. The entire 
temper of the period, especially in its Semitic and 
Oriental qualities, is so foreign to the ethos of West- 
ern peoples that, more than likely, many phenomena 
must elude our grasp always. Nevertheless, such 
light as is possible can break through in one way only. 
We must study the Roman imperial polity, religion, 
and local government, Hellenistic ideas, the Oriental 
gnostic spirit, the unique position of the Jewish 
race, and the whole social situation, primarily as 
moulded by slavery and by the intermixture of 
ancient cultures, if we would realize, even faintly, 
the remarkable flurry of events whence the books 
arose. Written by men in a world of men, they are 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 47 

tractable to explanation as a supremely human 
attempt to alter or disprove, to destroy or understand, 
some supernal things of life as it seemed then. What 
we know of the epoch, what we can ascertain by 
historical and linguistic analysis, or by chronological 
research, serves here, as elsewhere, to reduce the 
conglomerate facts to dynamic order. 

Critically viewed, then, the New Testament origi- 
nated in what may be pictured as three great waves of 
production. In each successive sweep it is possible 
to discern elements that preserve continuous identity, 
and thus to elicit the primitive tradition that nucleated 
after the appalling disaster of the Crucifixion. At 
the same time, civilization seethed so in the chief age 
of composition that alterations of standpoint, and 
even some of their causes, can be detected. Con- 
trasts in the circumstances and characters, in the 
ability, training, and associations of the individual 
authors count for much. And, very plainly, the 
migration of the new teaching, first, from its home 
in Galilee to Jerusalem, and then from its Judaistic 
limits into the monstrous whirlpool of Roman- 
Hellenistic culture, wrought profoundly. We must 
envisage the possibilities, latent amid these emigra- 
tions, in some such way as we think of the very subtle 
variations that overtook the English ethos, first, in 



148 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

old New England, then in the broad United States. 
The resultant differences, that is, pivot upon a con- 
trasted manner of approach to problems which 
themselves undergo no total change. But, elusive 
as they are, in the modern instance, we know well 
enough how to set about an explanation. To this 
procedure the ancient world is amenable, mutatis 
mutandis, and to no other. 

Accordingly, pursuant to this method, the first 
period of Christian authorship dates from the earli- 
est Letters of Paul (Galatians, 46 a.d.)^ to the de- 
struction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 a.d. Within 
these twenty to twenty-five years some documents of 
vast moment for the Christian consciousness came to 
birth. Plainly, the Pauline writings form by far the 
most important group. In the present state of 
knowledge, I understand it to be as sure as assurance 
can go regarding such matters, that the four major 
Epistles (Romans, Galatians, i and 2 Corinthians) 
belong to this era, and that the other Letters, 
except the Pastorals, Ephesians, part of Colos- 
sians, and 2 Thessalonians are to be attributed to 
Paul. To this view some scholars would demur.^ 

^ Of course, 46 is extravagantly early for Galatians; 50-54 
would cover the usual datings. 

^ It does not seem to me that the views of van Manen, Steck, and 
Professor Smith, of Tulane University, can be entertained seriously. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 49 

So far as I am able to judge, many questions con- 
cerning the Pauline documents must be regarded 
as sub judice. To this time also one may assign 
the collection of Sayings of Jesus, used by the 
Synoptists, especially by the author of our Gospel 
of Matthew. If the writer of the Acts of the 
Apostles enjoyed documentary sources, — a prob- 
lem still disputed hotly, — then his oldest source, the 
so-called ''We" document (xvi. 10-17; xx. 4-15; 
xxi. 1-18; xxvii. i-xxviii. 16), must be referred to 
this period. Finally, the Jewish apocalypses, rooted 
in ancient and obscure eschatological saga of the 
Semites/ used by the author of the Revelation, 
such, for example, as the astounding allegory repro- 
duced in chapter xii (cf. xi-xiii; xvii-xviii), were 
composed, in all likelihood, before the final cata- 
clysm at the holy city. 

The second period dates from the fall of Jerusalem 
to (roughly) the death of Nerva, in 98 a.d. Like the 
first, it produced documents of the utmost moment. 
To this time belong the Synoptic Gospels. Mark 
came almost immediately after the victory of 
Titus; Luke is dependent upon Mark; while 

^ So great is the difficulty of this subject that eminent scholars, 
like Dietrich, Gunkel, Spitta, Eduard Meyer, and W. Bousset, 
have been able to effect little more than a beginning of interpre- 
tation: dogmatic exegesis is out of the question. 



150 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Matthew, which has been edited more than once, 
provides an account palatable to all Christians, and 
the additions that enrich it represent a late stratum} 
But, in any case, redaction, interpolation, and 
excision aside, the general outline of the books, as 
we have them, was settled during this generation, and 
especially the ideas that dominated their composition 
had crystallized. The literature of this epoch in- 
cludes also the work of one of the three great theolo- 
gians of the New Testament — the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. The authorship remains an insoluble 
problem; I am unable to see how it is possible to 
overcome objections to the current opinion which 
connects the Letter with the name of Barnabas. 

^ E.g. i-ii; iv. 14-16; xiv; xvi-xvii; xxi. 2-5; xxvii. 3-10; 
xxvii. 62-xxviii. 20. Although I am without shadow of title to 
express an 'expert' opinion upon the Synoptic problem, I think 
that an unprejudiced man, who has read the literature carefully, 
may come to the following conclusions, which I record with all 
diffidence. It seems to me, on these Gospels, as we have them, 
that (i) Mark is the objective source of Matthew and Luke ; (2) 
Matthew and Luke presuppose other documentary sources, pos- 
sibly unknown to Mark, but how these ought to be rated or 
described precisely 1 find myself quite unable to say; (3) never- 
theless, there is a long and tangled history prior to Mark, in 
which Palestinian and Pauline influences interact; (4) Luke did 
not use Matthew as a source, nor Matthew Luke; (5) Matthew 
and Luke were affected by streams of tradition in the Christian 
community that differed in some particulars ; (6) all the Synoptics 
have been worked over — Mark like the o.hers. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 15I 

Another remarkable document of this time is the 
Revelation of St. John the Divine. It offers a 
recension of Jewish apocalyptic sources, brilliantly 
elaborated; the authorship cannot be determined 
with any certainty. All we can say is that probably 
John the Apostle did not compose it.^ The Acts 
of the Apostles, which still presents in many re- 
spects one of the enigmas of the New Testament, 
must also be assigned to these years. Perhaps it 
belongs to the reign of Domitian (81-96), while, on 
the other hand, it may date after the death of Nerva, 
and be referable, accordingly, to the first decade 
of Trajan. In any case, these last years furnish 
I Peter. 

The final period, from the accession of Trajan till, 
say, Marcus Aurelius's assumption of sole power 
(161 A.D.), provides one document of the first magni- 
tude — the Fourth Gospel. In my humble judge- 
ment, this must be accounted, for several reasons, 
the pearl of great price of the Nev/ Testament. As 
in the case of its lesser companion, Hebrews, the 
question of authorship has baffied investigation. 
Scholars are agreed, however, that it cannot be 
assigned to John the Apostle. And one may as well 

^ This is widely disputed still; I give my own impression of 
the evidence. 



152 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

mention, in passing, that this is an immense gain. 
For, if the two companions of Jesus, Mark (through 
Peter) and John, had furnished such utterly irre- 
concilable accounts of the Master, — contrast the 
Sermon on the Mount with the Johannine dis- 
courses, — it would be impossible for us to determine 
what manner of man he ^ was in his habit upon 
earth. Before the year 120 a.d. come the Epistles 
of John, followed by Jude, and the Pastoral 
Epistles (i and 2 Timothy, and Titus). The latest 
books in the New Testament canon are the 
Letter of James, and 2 Peter, which may bring 
us down as far as 150, or even 175, a.d. I may add 
that, on the w^hole, this summary tends in the con- 
servative direction, as critical opinion now goes. 

The most careless reader of even the English 
version cannot fail to observe that extraordinary 
contrasts pervade this literature. The Revelation 
and Mark move literally in dissimilar universes. 
The Acts and Hebrews are determined by motives 
of the most diverse nature. And, for readers of 
Greek, what a difference rules the verbal habit 
of the two great anonymous books, Hebrews 

^ Perhaps I should indicate at this point that I distinguish 
between Jesus, who was a historical figure, and Christ, Who is 
metahistorical. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 53 

and the Revelation. Nay, more, these contrasts, 
appearing on the surface, as they do, are nothing to 
the profounder appositions traceable to general per- 
spective, literary facility, spiritual discernment, and 
regnant personal tendency. And, in every case, these 
last constitute main factors in the reasons why the 
books came to be written at all. Notwithstanding, 
it seems practicable to group the stars of the first 
magnitude by reference to the contemporary condi- 
tion of the Christian atmosphere. 

When we approach a literature from the side of 
strict history, the question of convergent, formative 
influences always commands paramount attention. 
To understand a book, we must know something of 
the forces that played around and upon its author. 
Nor is the reason far to seek. A writer never sits 
down to record everything — the task transcends 
possibility. Of necessity, his views and conclusions 
are formulated in synoptic fashion. He picks and 
chooses, not indeed to induce a specious effect, but 
because he cannot proceed in any other way. The 
crowded, insignificant details of human life must not 
be permitted to swamp the narrative ; the mere surge 
of them would drown affairs of real moment. So, 
without exception, a meritorious writer takes for 
granted that his public shares a com^mon perspective. 



154 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

He lets the reader perform his part, anticipates this 
ability in him. Of course, many fail to realize this, 
because unaccustomed to reflect upon such matters. 
But an elementary acquaintance with classical 
literature, for example, suffices to bring it home 
forcibly. We cannot appreciate the comedies of 
Aristophanes just as the Athenian audience did; we 
find it difficult to make allowance, in Herodotus, for 
the pervasive conception of a working Nemesis; 
we miss not a little of the verisimilitude of the 
speeches in Thucydides; many details concerning 
Caesar's army continue to elude us; it demands 
careful study to realize the socio-political atmosphere 
breathed by Tacitus. Nay, the same holds true of 
literature that stands comparatively near. A novel 
like Vernon Lee's "Miss Brown," a play like "The 
Colonel," presented so cleverly by Edgar Bruce, 
presuppose the so-called aesthetic craze in England 
thirty years ago ; and we must refresh our memories 
by reference to Gilbert and Sullivan's "Patience," 
if we would enter into the situation. Be they great 
or small, literary products, having the slightest pre- 
tension to significance, require us to remember this. 
The New Testament writings form no exception 
to the rule. When, for instance, Mark says, "And 
they compel one passing by, Simon of Cyrene, com- 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 55 

ing from the country, the father of Alexander and 
Rufus, to go " (xv. 21), it is evident he assumes 
that his readers will recognize these personal refer- 
ences — this local and contemporary knowledge fails 
us entirely. Recalling, then, that all authors content 
themselves with hints and suggestions respecting 
affairs familiar in their time, we find that the New 
Testament, taken as a whole, presupposes two audi- 
ences, and therefore two circles of origin. Followers 
of Jesus constituted both, but their several tempo- 
ral circumstances happened to be different. The 
smaller, more highly organized, and less cosmopolitan 
group had its centre in Palestine, and clung to Jerusa- 
lem as the foreordained city of God. It was domi- 
nated, accordingly, by ideas current among the Jews 
in these days, and by a conviction that, in the new 
religious community, the long travail of Israel had 
attained finality at last — the true Messiah had 
appeared, lived, paid the penalty, and ascended, as 
the Scriptures prophesied. Therefore these Scrip- 
tures, above all, the Mosaic Law, were held of pe- 
culiar moment in the plan of salvation. Apocalyptic 
expectations abounded, and the Messiah might re- 
turn at any hour, to execute his judgement, to claim 
his kingdom, to inaugurate his world-rule. Here 
we find an imperium in imperio, as it were ; a special 



156 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

phenomenon, aside from Roman-Hellenistic civiliza- 
tion, concerned to preserve its own traits so far as 
possible, even under the heel of heathen might. 

But, emphasize the Jewish purview as one may, 
the fact remains that Roman-Hellenistic culture was 
the universal feature of the age — the very disciples 
of the innermost circle answered to Greek names. 
Antioch and Ephesus, Rome and Alexandria, typified 
influences that could not be excluded or stayed. So, 
as Jesus himself journeyed into Phoenicia, his dis- 
ciples fared forth amid the perplexing civilization of 
the wonderful empire, and to momentous conse- 
quence. With all the will in the world, the Gentile 
could not treat the Scriptures or the Law as if he 
were a Jew "to the manner born." His apprehen- 
sion of the anticipated apocalypse could not but take 
a course peculiar to itself. His appreciation of the 
significance to be attached to Messiah's career and 
continued spiritual presence was coloured, inevitably, 
by associations drawn from Graeco-Roman or Oriental 
traditions in culture. More than aught else, per- 
haps, the means and methods of his education, reach- 
ing back to the age of the Sophists, and transmitted 
through a series of glorious intellectual achieve- 
ments, destined him to react upon the plastic faith 
in very distinctive style. Similarly, a Jew resident 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 57 

in Palestine, by the mere fact of his Aramseic dialect, 
would diverge widely from a Greek-speaking Gentile. 
His direct heritage from the spiritual past of his folk, 
his conventional interpretation of the Scriptures, his 
inherent unity with ancient social custom and moral 
observance, his racial pride and expectation, sur- 
rounded him on all sides, and marked out the old 
paths wherein he ought to stand fast. Thus, he too 
caught up the new faith in a way manifestly his own. 
Now, the New Testament writers presuppose these 
contrasted, yet in a sense complementary, ethnic 
perspectives. The authors assume the aptness 
which would be evinced naturally by readers moulded 
in one or the other environment. By no means " all 
things to all men," they assuredly "write up to" 
some things in some men. 

Thus, our New Testament documents range 
themselves in two main divisions. First, those 
which sprang from the culture-circle of Palestine, and 
are characterized by a predominance of the objective 
or narrative element, though by no means to the 
exclusion of other tendencies. Second, those which 
originated in face of Gentile circumstances and 
needs, and are characterized by a predominance of 
an idealizing (sometimes theologico-philosophical) 
movement, though by no means to the exclusion of 



158 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

historical references. Necessarily, a common tradi- 
tion, sadly overlaid and obscured in the canon, 
underlies both. The first group finds its great 
exemplars in the First and Second Gospels, and in 
Revelation. Of lesser moment are the Epistles 
of James and Jude. The chief witnesses of the 
second group are the Epistles of Paul, Hebrews, 
and the Fourth Gospel, with the Petrine epistles as 
subsidiary. The Third Gospel occupies a peculiar 
position. On its objective side it seems to belong 
with the Synoptics ; on the other hand, some tincture 
from Pauline notions has flavoured it. But, as con- 
cerns Pauline admixture, the presence of similar 
influences in Mark serves to complicate the issue. 
I find it impossible to speak decisively of the Acts 
of the Apostles. In my personal opinion — which, 
pray remember, carries no weight whatever — it may 
be regarded as standing between the two groups. 
That is to say, it furnishes a partial record of the 
manner in which the transition from the narrower to 
the wider environment was accomplished. Never- 
theless, the standpoint of its author indicates sym- 
pathy more with the imperial than with the Pales- 
tinian outlook. 

Thus, whatever document we traverse, we find 
the New Testament writings were motivated like 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 59 

other books, that they display throughout those evi- 
dences of the universal conditions incident to literary 
composition which must be at disposal ere we can 
understand or interpret written works. It must be 
perfectly obvious that an author who spoke Greek, 
and trafficked with Greek-speaking neighbours, who 
dwelt where the temple-cult of Jerusalem exercised 
no direct authority, and so forth, could not frame his 
views without betraying his situation. Only after 
frank reception of this and related facts, is it at all 
possible, at our late day, to pierce the New Testa- 
ment literature so as to arrive at the tradition em- 
bedded there. The Gospels, the Epistles, and the 
rest — 

" are pilgrim-shrines, 
Shrines to no code or creed confined, — 
The Delphian vales, the Palestines, 
The Meccas of the mind." 

And, in the course of the journey, a great deal, taken 
for history once, falls away. Indeed, the first con- 
sequences of critical enquiry cannot but be negative. 
Let us look at this aspect of the matter for a moment. 
Take, for example, the central figure, and, having 
submitted the New Testament evidence to critical 
examination, ask, What do we know about Jesus 
historically ? If we set aside plausible tales that fit 



l6o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

easily to preconceived and explicable notions, the 
result is nothing short of revolutionary to the average 
man. The Gospels contain 2899 verses; of these 
only about one hundred furnish strict biographical 
details. Aside from, the record of the last days at 
Jerusalem, and of the teaching, our information about 
Jesus and his doings is scanty in the extreme. The 
objective facts startle by their omissions. Not only 
are the outlines of the faintest, but definite pronounce- 
ments are few and far between. Moreover, all the 
accounts are at second hand, and present amazing 
lacuncB. Thus, the extent of our ignorance becomes 
the impressive conclusion of criticism. For the sake 
of this impression, let us review what we do not 
know. We do not know what Jesus' descent was. 
We do not know the year of his birth. We do not 
know his birthplace for certain. Our information 
about his family is of the most incidental nature. 
His early life, his manner of education, the whole 
formative period of his youth, remain unrecorded. 
Indeed, save for the single incident in the temple, they 
are matters of "reverie." ^ We know nothing inti- 
mately about the influences which led to the develop- 
ment of his religious genius, for his exact relation to 

^ Cf. The Education of Christ: Hillside Reveries, W. M. 
Ramsay. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST l6l 

John the Baptist cannot be recovered. We are 
unaware how long his ministry lasted. We do not 
know his age at the time he undertook his mission. 
*'If we start from quite critical premises, we must 
come to the conclusion that we have no absolute 
certainty that any single saying in the Gospels was 
uttered in that precise form by Jesus himself." ^ 
Our available information is such that we do not 
know what the Last Supper meant to Jesus. " Only 
one thing is probably certain, that at the original 
Supper Jesus did not mean to institute a sacrament 
in the Catholic, Lutheran, or Calvinistic sense." ^ 
In the same way, we are unaware what Jesus thought 
about his own death. "One thing only is certain, 
that Jesus never conceived or expressed the thought 
that God's forgiveness of sins depended absolutely 
upon his ovvn sacrificial death or upon the vicarious 
atonement rendered by his death." ^ In like manner, 
too, we do not know what view Jesus took about the 
resurrection of the dead. ''We have really no 
authentic information as to what took place at the 
trial of Jesus. Matthew and Luke assumed that he 
must have been asked whether he was the Messiah, 
and that he must have preserved his Messianic 

^ Rud. Steck, in d. Protestantische Monatshefte, March, 1903. 
^ Jesus, W. Bousset, p. 206. ^ Ibid., pp. 207-208. 



l62 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

incognito to the end, refusing to answer the high 
priest's question. Mark, on the contrary, assumed 
that he admitted his Messiahship when the Messiah 
was defined as ''the Son of the Blessed." It is 
evident that when these accounts were written, the 
terms "Son of Man," "Christ," "Son of God," and 
" Son of the Blessed" were all synonymous, or tending 
to become so, and that "Son of God" was equivalent 
to "God," so that the blasphemy of making oneself 
equal to God could be regarded as the charge brought 
against Jesus. Nothing could more clearly indicate 
the late and unreliable nature of this narrative." ^ 
We do not know where Gethsemane was. We do 
not know the year in which Jesus was crucified, and 
discrepancy exists even with regard to the month. 
We do not know where he was crucified, or where 
buried. We do not know what happened to his 
body after burial. The accounts of his post mortem 
appearances to his truant disciples present irrecon- 
cilable allegations. Still more startling, the evange- 
lists are so sketchy, obscure, or conflicting that we 
do not know exactly what claims he made with 
respect to his mission on earth. 

Besides, when we abandon the New Testament, 
and search the contemporary literature of the Roman 

^ The Prophet of Nazareth^ Nathaniel Schmidt, pp. 149-150. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 63 

Empire, the silence of non- Christian writers is most 
remarkable and significant. The first overt refer- 
ence to Christianity postdates the probable time of 
the Crucifixion by more than eighty years. Still 
more disconcerting is the reticence, nay the perplexing 
lack of interest, characteristic of Paul. As a conse- 
quence, conservative and radical critics are in agree- 
ment perforce on one point at least. The facts 
necessary for a life of Jesus, in the objective or his- 
torical sense, simply do not exist. We are dependent 
mainly upon conjecture and inference that involve 
us in constant uncertainty. No doubt, Socrates 
and Shakespeare present parallel cases. But, even 
for the former, no such claims have been advanced 
as for Jesus; it was not alleged of Socrates, as of 
his pupil Plato, that he had a god to father. Nor 
does the astonishing recital close here. The same 
inference holds true, substantially, of all the men 
who are reputed to have composed the New Testa- 
ment. Our information about the greatest of them, 
Paul, is most tantalizing in its fragmentariness. 
How a man such as he is reported to have been 
came to compose the Epistle to the Romans 
before 60 a.d. amounts to a first-rate literary mys- 
tery. In the same way, we know nothing about the 
writers of the First and Second Gospels; nothing, 



164 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

except, perhaps, his nationahty and profession, of 
the charming litterateur who gave us the Third ; and 
nothing at all of the profound genius responsible 
for the Fourth. Similarly, too, the eminent theo- 
logian who produced the Epistle to the Hebrews 
remains anonymous, like the strange seer-anti- 
quarian who compiled the Revelation. Of the 
authenticity of the less important documents we 
know little or nothing. 

Nevertheless, such happen to be disconcerting 
facts, 'tob little appreciated, often not even appre- 
hended, by the usual church-going Christian. We 
must needs face the resultant situation as best we 
can. For one thing alone stands out perfectly clear. 
Thanks to the paucity of biographical material, 
later generations drew their own pictures of an ideal 
Christ, and threw them back, in default of historical 
information. They filled out the vacant past accord- 
ing to their hearts' desires, and this without much 
reference to a possible historical basis. The oldest 
New Testament documents are, even thus early, 
illustrations of the process. Little wonder, then, 
that Christians are to be found who deny that their 
religion took its rise from a historical individual, 
and who insist that it "should be regarded as a par- 
ticular development of social life, and not as the 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 165 

work of a personal founder of a religion";* who 
declare : — 

"There are narratives in the Bible which are even 
more vivid than the Christ-stories in their impression 
of personal reality, yet scientific research has defi- 
nitely ascertained that there is no historical person- 
ality at the base of them. To take two instances 
that will be familiar to the general reader, the figures 
in the book of Ruth are very sharply defined and 
vivid, and the prophet Jonah has a perfect stamp 
of individuality. Yet there never was an historical 
Ruth or an historical Jonah as described in the story. 
Both narratives are entirely the outcome of religious 
poetry. They belong to a later Judaic age, and 
are intended to meet the increasing chauvinism of 
the Jews with the ideas of humanity and interna- 
tionalism." ^ 

In short, thanks to the very barrenness of history, 
it has been deemed possible to trace the origin 
of Christianity, not to a man, but "to advanced 
Jewish thought, or to the philosophy, humanism, 
or socialism of Roman imperial times." ^ Briefly, 
the conditions in the Roman world were such that 
Christianity was bound to have arisen, Jesus or no 
Jesus. Extreme though it be, — "a form of pseudo- 

^ The Rise of Christianity, Albert Kalthoff, p. 3. 

^ Ibid., pp. 14-15. ^ Jesus, Arno Neumann, p. i. 



1 66 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

criticism," ^ — this position serves to show the straits 
to which the historico-critical movement may re- 
duce us. 

The complex problems, inseparable from the ca- 
nonical sources as we have them, may be illustrated 
in yet another way; I mean by reference to the dis- 
crepancies that so abound. Time forbids more 
than the bare mention of a few of the more simple 
cases, and these I set down at random. They 
may serve, at least, as examples of many others, 
even more perplexing. Take, for example, the pas- 
sages in Matthew xi. 2 f., and Luke vii. 18 f. How 
are we to interpret the series of miracles related 
here? Is the language a statement of objective fact, 
or is it a kind of symbolism? The answer would 
seem to be, We do not know. For, symbolic language 
is often upon Jesus' lips. "Can the blind lead the 
blind? Shall they not both fall into the ditch? . . . 
And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy 
brother's eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in 
thine own eye?"^ "It was meet that we should 
make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was 
dead, and is alive again: and was lost, and is 
found." ' 

^ An Introduction to the New Testament, Adolf Jiilicher, p. 28. 
^ Luke vi. 39, 41. ^ Ihid., xv. 32. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 67 

And the famous statement of Mark — 

"And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of 
the bridechamber fast, while the Bridegroom is with 
them? As long as they have the Bridegroom with 
them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, 
when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from 
them, and then shall they fast in those days 



55 1 



would appear to indicate that, on such occasions, 
Jesus has reference to the general situation of re- 
newal resultant upon his work. And, if we force an 
objective interpretation, how can we reconcile it with 
the disclaimers entered in Matthew iv. 5-7; xii. 
38-42, in Luke iv. 9-13; xi. 29-32? These 
passages illustrate one type of discrepancy. 

The following are of a different kind. 

{a) Luke's account of the birth at Bethlehem 
contains several historical impossibilities and, more- 
over, traverses the tradition, implied in the name 
"Jesus of Nazareth," that Jesus was born at Naza- 
reth. 

(b) The discourses reported in the Fourth Gospel 
differ so completely from the sayings preserved by 
the Synoptists that one must conclude they were 
composed by the writer and then placed in Jesus' 
mouth by him. 

^ ii. 19 f. 



1 68 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

(c) A clear development of the baptism story 
is traceable from Mark, through Matthew and Luke, 
to John. The differences cannot be reconciled save 
by recognition of progressive elaboration. 

{d) Mark and Luke recount that Jesus held one 
view about divorce, Matthew's recital is at variance. 

{e) Mark and Matthew tell one thing about the 
route taken on the last journey to Jerusalem, Luke 
another. 

(/) The Synoptists recite words uttered by Jesus 
during the agony in the Garden, and yet, almost in 
the same breath, we are told that the disciples were 
''a stone's cast from him," and overcome with sleep. 
Who heard him, then? If the account be credible, 
plainly we know nothing about these words. 

{g) Luke tells us that the Last Supper was eaten 
on the 14th Nisan, John says the date was the 13th. 
It is well to warn ourselves that this discrepancy 
has nothing to do with historical fact; it can be 
traced, however, to doctrinal prepossession. 

Qi) The Synoptists disagree in their reports 
of Jesus' words on the cross; and John records a 
conversation of Jesus with Mary, and "the disciple 
whom he loved," — who were not present at the time ! 

(i) The accounts of the resurrection contradict 
each other, and Paul's recital is not in accord with 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 69 

that of any one of the evangehsts. There was no 
eye-witness of the event, all the disciples had 
fled into Galilee. On the evidence as we have it, 
two questions can be asked legitimately. Did Jesus 
rise from the dead in a literal physical way? Or, 
did the disciples, their atmosphere being what it 
was, come to believe inevitably that he had so risen? 
Which is the fact? 

(y) How can we reconcile the account of the post- 
mortem appearance to the disciples at Emmaus (Luke 
xxiv. 13 f.) with the information, given presumably 
by the same writer, in Acts i. i f . ? 

{k) How can we fit the discrepant tales about 
the death of Judas, furnished respectively in Mat- 
thew xxvii. 3 f. and Acts i. 15 f. ? * 

(l) Similarly, it is impossible, on any historical 
basis, to collate the story of Paul's life after his con- 
version, as given in Acts, with his own account 
(presumably), as given in Galatians. 

Thus it seems to follow, from a historico-critical 
investigation of the documents, that they are not to 
be taken as histories in any strict modern sense; 
and that to read them in this fashion is to commit 
grave error, fraught with dangerous consequences. 

^ The probability is that both can be traced to the legend of 
Nadan, nephew of Ahikar, grand vizier of Sennacherib. 



lyo MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

In a word, the historical element is mixed with other 
factors that tend to transform it, and this in ascer- 
tainable ways. We may attempt to understand the 
matter by reference to the influence exercised by 
the Old Testament upon the men of the New, 
especially upon Jesus himself. 

We are well aware that Jewish culture was not 
submerged in the huge sea of Roman-Hellenistic 
civilization, although it suffered dilution. In this 
connexion it is important to note that, so far as we 
know, all the New Testament authors were Jews, 
except the writer of the Third Gospel and the Acts 
of the Apostles. Hence a paramount consideration, 
forgotten 'too frequently even by professed students 
of theology. The New Testament cannot be under- 
stood apart from apprehension of Semitic modes of 
thought, especially as crystallized in the sacred litera- 
ture of the Hebrews. Here I can do no more than 
indicate the subtle, all-pervading tendency imparted 
by the Old Testament. 

The intricate problems of interaction between 
subjective ideas and objective events, inseparable 
from the sources as they have come down to us, 
require that we remember the part played by the 
Jewish Scriptures, — they provided the norms for- 
mative of life and applied to the valuation of conduct. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 171 

They offered a set view, not merely of the duties 
pertinent to the individual man, but also of the destiny 
reserved for the people. In particular, they furnished 
an explanation of God's nature, and earthly govern- 
ment. Briefly, every Jew, Jesus like the rest, was born 
into a well-marked spiritual penumbra. Such Psalms 
as the ii, xviii, xx, xxi, xlv, Ixiii, ex, cxii, to name only a 
few, were susceptible of Messianic interpretation ; and 
the same held of numerous passages in the other 
writings. A vast system had grown up round the 
Scriptures that intertwined everywhere with common 
aft'airs. Nothing could escape it, from the most 
ordinary trivialities of the daily round to the sublimest 
aspirations fathered by man. Besides, all this had 
wrought itself into the very marrow of Jewish culture, 
not by reference to a racial philosophy of history alone, 
but rather because the sacred books themselves formed 
the chief staple of national education. As Josephus 
says, "Moses had commanded that the children 
should be brought up in the knowledge of these Scrip- 
tures that relate to the laws." That is, the Old 
Testament supplied more than a theory of existence, — 
it had become the instrument of ethical and religious 
discipline. To hear, to read, to recite, to transcribe 
the Scriptures, — this was the royal road to learning, 
as in Mohammedan Cairo, say, at the present moment. 



172 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Apart altogether from any question of its influence 
over the nascent Christian faith, we can trace the 
Old Testament everywhere in the New, just because 
the Jewish youth were nurtured on it. Accordingly, 
we shall not be surprised to find its atmosphere 
present always to Jesus. When the Pharisees re- 
proved his disciples, because they plucked wheat on 
the Sabbath day, Jesus took appeal to Scripture his- 
tory. That memory played him false about the 
high priest's name (Mark ii. 26), that he was unaware 
these regulations postdated David's time, makes no 
difference. He enforced his opinion by the norms 
familiar to his people; in Matthew's version, he 
cited Hosea vi. 6, and no further justification 
of his followers was necessary. In the same way, 
when Matthew made Jesus enter Jerusalem sitting 
on an ass and her colt, he was simply following too 
faithfully Zechariah's statement: "Behold thy king 
Cometh unto thee . . . riding upon an ass, even upon 
a colt the foal of an ass" (ix. 9). The Synoptist 
stuck to the letter of a language which plainly had 
faded from use. But the prophecy must be fulfilled. 
When a misunderstood linguistic usage is turned 
thus into what purports to be an historical event, we 
are in a position to judge of the immense leverage 
exerted by the Old Testament. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 73 

Thus, for Jesus, the recitals and doctrines of the 
Scriptures constituted standards of judgement and 
appeal. His heedless contemporaries stand in like 
case with the sinners of Noah's day (Mt. xxiv. 37 f., 
Luke xvii. 26 f .) ; historicity counted for nothing. 
When he was confronted by the disciples of John, 
who asked, ''Art thou he that cometh, or look we 
for another? " he replied with quotations from Isaiah 
(xxxv. 5 f. ; Ixi. i) . In the Beatitudes he quoted from 
Psalm xxxvii. When he cleansed the temple (Mark 
xi. 17), he employed a phrase derived from Jere- 
miah (vii. 11). When he discussed "washings of 
cups, and pots, and brazen vessels " with the Phari- 
sees (Mark vii. 4 f.), he cited Isaiah (xxix. 13). 
Isaiah v. i f. is entwined with the parable of the 
man who planted a vineyard (Mark xii. i f .) . When 
Jesus took a meal with the publican (Mt. ix. 13) , he 
appealed again to Hosea. He denied the Davidic 
descent of Messiah by reference to Psalm ex, without 
any qualms of conscience about David's possible 
authorship. So, too, he proved the resurrection of 
the dead (Mark xii. 26) by pleading in evidence Ex- 
odus iii. 2, 6 ! When he made his entry into Jerusa- 
lem, after the manner predicted of Messiah, he found 
justification in Isaiah (Ixii. 11). When he com- 
mented upon the execution of John Baptist (Mark 



174 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ix. 13), he recalled i Kings (xix. 2, 10), or, more 
probably, a lost apocryphon represented by the Sla- 
vonic Antiquities of Pseudo-Philo. When he silenced 
the Tempter (Mt. iv. 10), he was reminiscent of 
Deuteronomy (vi. 13) ; while the Tempter, when he 
urged Jesus to cast himself down from the pinnacle 
of the temple (Luke iv. 10), quoted from Psalm 
xci. II f. Similar instances might be multipHed 
easily. Suffice it to indicate that, when he passed 
through the crises in his career, Jesus reverted con- 
stantly to the Hebrew Scriptures; even at the last 
dreadful moment on the cross, as Mark reports, he 
repeated the first verse of Psalm xxii. 

So it is no way astonishing to find that the Old 
Testament worms itself into the very tissue of the 
New, — into Matthew and John, into the speeches 
of Peter, and Philip, and Stephen in Acts, into 
the sublime constructions of the Pauline Epistles; 
and that the Revelation summarizes age-old, pos- 
sibly esoteric, expectations of Semitism as they 
took peculiar form in the Palestinian consciousness. 
Now, the Old Testament could be thus absorbed 
into the New, given certain conditions. If the New 
Testament were not primarily a history, if mere quo- 
tation from the ancient Scriptures could constitute 
irrefragable proof, could be put in place of real events, 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 175 ' 

could clinch doctrine by simple citation, then the pro- 
cess, as we know it, could have taken place; not 
otherwise. It becomes plain, accordingly, that this 
very relation of the later to the earlier documents 
forbids us to estimate the New Testament as a work 
intended for a plain, unadorned, historic recital. I 
need hardly remind you that the average '' Bible 
student," so called, has little or no knowledge of 
this elementary — and elemental — fact. 

4. Christian Syncretism 

Finally, the historico-critical movement has shown 
that, just as the early Christian consciousness sus- 
tained itself upon the Old Testament, so, within a 
generation after the Crucifixion, it began to adopt and 
adapt ideas current in the Hellenistic world. Like 
Buddhism, Christianity is a highly syncretist religion. 

Primitive devotion to Jesus originated in an en- 
vironment where Jewish (scriptural) notions reigned 
supreme. But, even here, other factors found place. 
The long association with Greek civilization, dating 
from the time of Alexander the Great (331 B.C.), 
must be taken into account. The presence of Orien- 
tal influences, particularly in eschatological doctrine, 
is highly probable, while infiltration from the religions 
of Babylonia, and possibly of the Farther East, 



176 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

amounts to a certainty. Yet, even so, the Jewish 
element preserved itself decisive. But, when the 
new religion migrated into Roman-Hellenistic circles, 
it was confronted by two systems, whose complete 
domination and importance can hardly be exagger- 
ated. One of these controlled the world of theor}-, 
the other that of practice. The Roman Empire 
developed its spiritual life within the atmosphere of 
a perplexing conglomeration of ideas, doctrines, and 
aspirations compounded from Plato and later Greek 
thought, from the theosophical tendencies induced 
by Oriental moods, and from the peculiar drift of the 
spirit of the age. So, too, on the practical side, a 
great concourse of secret cult-societies honeycombed 
Mediterranean Europe. Devotees of the ancient 
Chthonic Mysteries abounded, because initiation was 
now a privilege open to all Roman citizens. The 
occult rites of Egyptian and Phrygian deities flour- 
ished luxuriantly, as we know from the satirists. 
"The Orontes had flowed into the Tiber." To these 
must be added the worship of the Emperors, and 
the peculiar situation in the Jewish Diaspora. Con- 
trasted as they were, and appealing primarily to 
different groups in the community, the system of 
ideas and the crowd of religious observances did not 
circle apart on separate orbits. For, similar aspira- 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 177 

lions, fruit of identical human problems, swayed 
both theory and practice. Nor can this leaven be 
said to have differed irremediably from some leanings 
germinal, if no more at first, in Christian belief. 
Moreover, reconciliation saturated the spiritual at- 
mosphere. Briefly, ideal motives, remarkable in 
their family likeness, affected all men, just because, 
moved by immense and missionary zeal. Christians 
could not stand aside, and stay untouched. Conse- 
quently, labile Christianity, as it insinuated itself 
rapidly into the syncretist stream, absorbed material 
quite foreign to its native (Jewish scriptural) charac- 
ter: this was inevitable. 

For example, the Jewish Messianic expectation 
came to be allegorized by the Logos doctrine, derived 
from Plato, the Stoics, and Philo. The theosophical 
necessity for a mediator between God and the world 
replaced the hope that a great man would appear, 
commissioned to lead the earth to righteousness, 
as the Scriptures had foretold. Thus, in effect, the 
syncretist conception of the incarnate Christ eclipsed 
the humane career of the historical Jesus. As one 
of the most learned among Anglican divines has 
remarked : — 

"The conception of Christ as the Wisdom and the 
Power of God seemed inconsistent with the meanness 

N 



1 78 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of a common human life; and that life resolved itself 
into a series of symbolic representations of superhuman 
movements, and the record of it was written in hi- 
eroglyphs." ^ 

Accordingly, a new God — not the Hebrew 
Yahweh, and a new Son of God — not the Jewish 
Messiah, achieved predominance in the Chris- 
tian consciousness, and the doctrinal developments 
that were to differentiate Christianity so sharply 
from its Semitic forerunner displayed themselves 
quickly. The theory of Virgin-birth was adopted. 
The notion of divine paternity, so familiar to the 
Roman-Hellenistic world, so repugnant to the Jew, 
entered upon its fateful career. It guaranteed the 
efficacy of the mediation and salvation that lay close 
to the heart of multitudes of Roman citizens, drawn 
from every name under heaven. The Christian 
community possessed itself of a mystic notion that 
enabled it to respond to a popular demand and, at 
the same time, raised this to the purer altitude of 
its own vitalizing hope. In other words, a highly 
speculative doctrine replaced unmalleable historical 
events. The resurrection ''on the third day" of the 
Phrygian Attis-cult, and of the Egyptian Osiris-cult, 
proof of the vicarious, victorious suffering of these 

^ The Hihhert Lectures, 1888, Edwin Hatch, D.D., p. 75. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 79 

gods; the part played by the underworld in the 
Chthonic Mysteries; the obscure legends of Semitic 
apocalypse, connected with the Hebrew Abaddon and 
Antichrist, passed over to the Christians, and attained 
new consecration at their hands. The regnant the- 
ory of the Roman-Hellenistic world operated to these 
marvellous ends. 

In like manner, the practical situation wrought 
strange consequences. The religious guilds, — Thiasoi, 
Eranoij or Orgeones, — palpitating with fiducial en- 
thusiasm, filled with zeal for moral reformation after 
their kind, read a lesson to Christians that they could 
not ignore. The Christian societies tended to assimi- 
late themselves to these fraternities, just as, in any 
community, at any time and in any place, a new asso- 
ciation will follow naturally the lines drawn by organ- 
izations already in possession of the field. So it is 
nowise wonderful to find that, little as Sabazius or 
Mithra, Serapis or Isis had in common with the ethi- 
cal, non-thaumaturgic Judaism of Jesus, romanic 
Christians could not but be drawn by the success of 
competing and older clubs. Further, this tendency 
proved the more unavoidable that the worshippers 
of Mithra and the rest expected to obtain mortal puri- 
fication and immortal life by reason of their devotion. 
Moreover, the god of the Thiasos had secured these 



l8o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

benefits for his worshippers by personal suffering 
and death. The chastisement of their peace was 
upon him; with his stripes they were healed. So 
close was the spiritual parallelism that, as scholars 
have observed, had the religion of Mithra conquered 
the Roman world, as seemed possible at one crisis, 
Christianity would have descended to us very much in 
the guise which the Mithraic cult now presents to 
these investigators ! Most naturally, then, the great 
Mithraic festival of Sol Invictus (spiritualized as 
the Sun of Righteousness) became Christmas Day; * 
the period between the death and resurrection of 
Jesus, assigned by the Gospels, was that of the Osiris- 
cult, just as the period, of different length, between 
Good Friday and Easter Day, agreed with the tri- 
duum of the Attis-Cybele festival. As the Christian 
community came to be composed more and more of 
Roman citizens, perfectly familiar with the organiza- 
tion, methods, and aims of the mystery-cults, so cus- 
toms passed insensibly from the elder to the younger 
societies. "The four forms of Christian belief which 
we have been considering are the Virgin-birth of 
Jesus Christ, His Descent into the nether world, His 

^ It is a well-known fact that Eastern Christians {e.g. at Edessa) 
objected to the "idolatry" involved in the adoption of Christmas 
Day by the Roman community. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST l8l 

Resurrection, and His Ascension. On the ground 
of facts supplied by archaeology, it is plausible to hold 
that all these arose out of a pre-Christian sketch of 
the life, death, and exaltation of the expected Messiah, 
itself ultimately derived from a widely current mythic 
tradition respecting a solar deity." ^ 

In the same way, the belief, current universally 
among the thiasic initiates, that the Redeemer-God 
must die, not only exercised profound influence over 
the direction taken by Christian belief and speculation, 
but also induced modifications of practice, as in Bap- 
tism and the Last Supper. We find, for instance, 
that, until this widespread idea had time to operate, 
— till about the close of the second century, — the 
abstract theory of the deity of Jesus received no fixed 
interpretation; in like manner, the doctrine of the 
Holy Spirit fluctuated freely for six or seven genera- 
tions. So, too, the powerful conception of unity with 
other men in communion with a common deity, 
highly characteristic of the Roman-Hellenistic cults, 
made itself felt in the evolution of Christian practice. 
Baptism assumed the nature of an operative process; 
it became '^ enlightenment," "a seal," exactly as in 
the mysteries; it filled the office of an ''initiation" 

^ Bible Problems, T. K. Cheyne, D.D., Professor of Interpreta- 
tion of Holy Scripture at Oxford, p. 128. 



1 82 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ceremony; while the baptismal formula assimilated 
itself to a "password," admitting the bearer to special 
privileges. The exorcism and anointment with oil, 
that came to be accompaniments of the rite, are 
traceable to the same source. False gods were ab- 
jured, and sins washed away, as in the thiasic ritual; 
in short, a thaumaturgic efi&cacy was imported thence. 
Likewise, in the Supper, the elements themselves 
became ''mysteries"; the conception of sacrifice 
attained predominance; the sacramental reference 
occupied a chief place ; and the necessity for a priestly 
intermediary formulated itself. The gulf fixed be- 
tween the simplicity of the Gospel meal and the 
syncretized Christian eucharist, resultant upon Ro- 
man-Hellenistic infiltration, may be inferred from the 
following mystic narrative of Dionysius Areopagites. 

''AH the other initiations are incomplete without 
this. The consummation and crown of all the rest 
is the participation of him who is initiated in the the- 
archic mysteries. For though it be the common 
characteristic of all the hierarchic acts to make the 
initiated partakers of the divine light, yet this alone 
imparted to me the vision through whose mystic 
light, as it were, I am guided to the contemplation 
of the other sacred things. . . . The sacred hierarch 
initiates the sacred prayer and announces to all the 
holy peace: and after all have saluted each other, 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 83 

the mystic recital of the sacred lists is completed. 
The hierarch and the priests wash their hands in 
water; he stands in the midst of the divine altar, 
and around him stand the priests and the chosen 
ministers. The hierarch sings the praises of the 
divine working and consecrates the most divine mys- 
teries, and by means of the symbols which are sacredly 
set forth, he brings into open vision the things of which 
he sings the praises. And when he has shown the 
gifts of the divine working, he himself comes into a 
sacred communion with them, and then invites the 
rest. And having both partaken and given to the 
others a share in the thearchic communion, he ends 
with a sacred thanksgi\dng ; and while the people 
bend over what are divine symbols only, he himself, 
always by the thearchic spirit, is led in a priestly 
manner, in purity of his godlike frame of mind, 
through blessed and spiritual contemplation, to the 
holy realities of the mysteries.' 



55 1 



Thus, as Hatch points out, ''the whole conception 
of Christian worship was changed. But it was 
changed by the influence upon Christian worship of 
the mysteries and the concurrent cults." ^ One need 
only compare, say, even Luke's description of the 
Last Supper with the theurgic presentation given 
above, to realize how true this is. 

^ Quoted from Hatch's Hibberi Lectures, pp. 303, 304. 
^ Ibid., p. 309. 



184 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Finally, the full consequences of this syncretist 
process crystallized in the creeds. The transfor- 
mation of the early faith was so profound that, even 
in the simplest of our ''symbols" (a word, by the 
way, taken from the mysteries) , the so-called Apostles' 
Creed, there is nothing, in all likelihood, which Jesus 
would have understood after the credal sense, except, 
probably, ''the life everlasting" and, possibly, a 
certain aspect of the resurrection article. And the 
creed, recollect, is but "the baptismal formula en- 
larged" ^ — the password, as it were, to the "greater 
mystery," whereof the Eleusinian initiate could ex- 
claim: "I have fasted; I have drunk the kykeon; 
I have taken out of the kiste; and after having tasted 
I have deposited in the kalathos.''^ ^ Thus the beg- 
garly elements of a less spiritual faith were baptized 
into the Christian consciousness. "The base things 
of the world, and the things that are despised, did 
God choose, yea and the things that are not, that 
he might bring to nought the things that are." ^ 

^ Cf. The Apostles' Creed, A. Harnack, in The Nineteenth 
Century, vol. xxxiv, pp. 158 f. 

^ The Eleusinian Mysteries, Francois Lenormant, in The 
Contemporary Review, vol. xxxviii, p. 144. Kykeon — the re- 
freshing draught ; a sacred cake was taken out of the kiste = the 
box or chest, touched and tasted, then returned to the kalathos = 
wicker basket. 

^ I Corinthians i. 28. 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 85 

Such, then, appear to be some results and tenden- 
cies of the historico-critical movement regarding 
Ancient History, the Old and New Testaments, and 
the Origins of Christianity. Sketchy as my summary 
perforce is, it may suffice to indicate the direction taken 
by research ; and to render this unmistakable, I have 
set the material in high light. Further, many of the 
most distinguished scholars are banded, in a world- 
wide fellowship, to attack details that still remain 
obscure. The end is not yet, one dare not forecast 
the ultimate inferences upon disputed points. Never- 
theless, it needs no argument to show that the move- 
ment has arrived, and arrived to stay. The labour 
of a century has not proved vain, and only a Mrs. 
Partington would deal with it after her fashion. The 
fait accompli stands forth to such purpose that the 
hazards of belief assume a fresh guise, one quite 
unprecedented. 

"... Mortalia facta peribunt, 
Nedum sermonum stet honos et gratia vivax." 

Applied in this thoroughgoing style to the august 
construction of Christian dogma and doctrinal legend, 
the historico-critical movement, with its strict induc- 
tive methods, appears to produce veritable "humilia- 
tion in the midst." Notwithstanding, even if many 
problems rest unsettled, we are bound to remember 



1 86 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

that, after all, this type of investigation has little more 
than started. As years go by, it cannot fail to reap 
larger results, agreed upon by those who have earned 
the right to speak with authority, and backed by 
evidences that are sure to move thoughtful, candid 
men. Lengthened observation and reflexion have led 
me to conclude that, in spite of its present fluid state, 
we are destined to reckon with it. In any case, it is 
quite certain that the old elevation of doctrine and in- 
tellectual assent above life and moral worth must go by 
the board. Festooned with sacred memories as the 
ancient props are, a worse thing than this glimpse of 
historical truth may well befall us, if we persist in 
blindness to their real nature. Assuredly, in these 
days of popular education, the laity will come to know 
the facts, and cease to rest satisfied with garbled 
accounts of them; it matters little whether the 
garbling be undertaken in the interests of confessional 
orthodoxy or of propagandist rationalism. Slowly 
but surely the new knowledge is permeating society, 
and, as surely, accordant measures are, or will become, 
a clamant want. The parting of the ways will arrive, 
later if not sooner. Men in whose lives religion plays 
a vital role have need of all the courage and love of 
truth at their disposal. For, to be explicit, organized 
Christianity has been called to trial upon two counts, 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 87 

both of paramount importance to the twentieth cen- 
tury. On the one hand, the church must make up 
its mind whether or no its mission possesses meaning 
in relation to the democratic movement, rumbhng 
underground now, destined to speak out full-throated 
to-morrow. It must decide whether its preaching 
is to take cognizance primarily of a possible life be- 
yond the grave, or is, first of all, to concentrate upon 
the sublime petition, "Thy kingdom come; Thy will 
be done, in earth, as it is in heaven." With this, 
these Lectures do not concern themselves. On the 
other hand, the church must make up its mind whether 
the permanent elements of religion are to remain 
fettered, perhaps stultified, by hypotheses relevant 
in the fourth century, or are capable of plangent 
statement in terms of our contemporary outlook upon 
the world and life. In some respects, the latter is 
the most difficult problem before our generation. 

Like all difficult and immense things, its historical 
course has been most complex and tortuous. So 
much so that one cannot say, lo here or lo there it 
took rise. Likewise, its saecular trend, unhasting, 
unresting, still sweeps towards maturity. It awaits 
the alembic of a seminal personality, as we await the 
epiphany of its Plato or Augustine, of its Newton or 
Hegel. In short, no one but a great genius, of an 



1 88 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

individualized type superfluous or impossible in a 
former age, can transform the mysterious perspec- 
tives of belief. For he alone is able to bring forth 
from the treasures of heart and brain things both 
new and old. 

But, be all this as it will, thus far we have not con- 
fronted our third 'universe.' So, in the Lectures 
to come, I shall ask you to reflect with me upon 
certain aspects of the religious and ethical conscious- 
ness. Possibly some glimpses may be vouchsafed 
us, if not of an undiscovered country, at least of a 
dimension of experience that eludes the strait canons 
dear to history. Yet, even this essay is sore beset by 
manifold difficulties, and encompassed with wander- 
ing lights. Indeed, these happen to be incidents 
wrought into the central importance of the subject 
for our common humanity. 

''All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This, I was worth to God, Whose wheel the pitcher shaped." 

Yea, verily! But, how to elicit this? How to con- 
vey it in the poor show of words, so apt to mumble 
or slur the quintessential? These mobile, ethereal 
tremors, and all the solemn questions they evoke, 
disclose the basal, poignant afflictions that hover 
about our paradoxical lot. I beg earnestly that you 



HUMILIATION IN THE MIDST 1 89 

will realize the slipperiness of the possible foothold 
and, realizing, bear with my constant stumbles. 

Note. — The following works are readily available for readers 
of English who wish to pursue the subject farther. An Intro- 
duction to the New Testament, A. Jiilicher (Smith, Elder and 
Co., London); The First Three Gospels, J. Estlin Carpenter 
(Sunday School Association, London) ; The Johannine Writings, 
Paul W. Schmiedel (Macmillan Co., New York) ; The Fourth 
Gospel, its Purpose and Theology, Ernest F. Scott (Scribner, New 
York); The Life of Jesus, Oscar Holtzmann (Macmillan Co., 
New York) ; The Sources of Our Knowledge of the Life of Jesus, 
Paul Wernle (Philip Green, London) ; Jesus, W. Bousset (G. P. 
Putnam's Sons, New York) ; Jesus, Arno Neumann (Macmillan 
Co., New York); Paul, W. Wrede (Philip Green, London); 
Exploratio Evangelica, A Brief Examination of the Basis and 
Origin of Christian Belief, Percy Gardner (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 
New York) ; The Beginnings of Christianity, Paul Wernle (G. P. 
Putnam's Sons, New York) ; The Influence of Greek Ideas and 
Usages upon the Christian Church, Edwin Hatch (Hibbert Lec- 
tures for 1888, Williams and Norgate, London) ; The New 
Testament Articles in the Encyclopcedia Biblica (Macmillan Co., 
New York). Messrs. Williams and Norgate, London, or Messrs. 
G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, will furnish upon application a 
list of the works constituting the Crown Theological Library, 
which are admirably suited for all laymen interested in the Chris- 
tian religion and kindred topics. 



LECTURE V 

THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 

As we approach our further enquiry, let me say 
at once that I do not intend to elaborate a critical 
argument. In other words, I shall make no formal 
attack upon the technical conclusions of the scientific 
consciousness. This were absurd and, for the phi- 
losophy, superfluous. So far as our generation is 
concerned, it can afford to rest content with Professor 
Ward's rigorous analysis of Naturalism.^ More- 
over, in another place, I have committed myself to 
the opinion : — 

"As regards the mechanical theory, in particular, 
Dr. Ward's treatment may be taken as final. . . . 
The mechanical theory, the theory of mechanical 
evolution, and the theory of psychological parallelism 
fail as accounts of the universe as a whole. They 
can be proved insufficient and abstract, or partisan 
and illogical. . . . The account of the manner in 
which the mechanical theory turns itself inside out in 

^ Cf. Naturalism and Agnosticism, James Ward, especially 
vol. i. 

190 



THE FREEST ABLISHED DISCORD 191 

the inevitable course of its historical development 
is masterly to a degree, and the same may be allowed 
of the measure meted to the half-monisms associated 
with the 'new' psychology. In the criticism of the 
theory of mechanical evolution the work rises to a 
very high level of dialectical skill." ^ 

This view I continue to affirm. 

Nor shall I assault the findings of the historico- 
critical method. On the face of it, an amateur must 
admit the competence of a factual science within its 
own range. On the contrary, my desire is rather to 
elaborate a point of view, one that may serve, pos- 
sibly, to stress activities of the ethico-religious life 
which contemporary studies and methods have 
tended to obscure, and have, as I believe, minimized. 

Since Thales and his successors in Greece, thought 
has travelled many a spiral round, with infinite 
pains. Generally, it has passed from a vague cos- 
mological standpoint, through a molar-mechanical 
one, to a molecular universe so ramified and elusive 
in its parts that the necessity for traffic with first 
principles seems to have lost emphasis. We need 
to circle back upon concrete experience, armed, 
however, with the ampler views won so hardly on 

^ The American Journal of Theology, vol. iv, p. 136 (in a review 
of the above). 



192 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

many levels. Science was made by man, it is his 
instrument, never his master. And from this judge- 
ment no species of science, natural or human, can 
claim exemption. 

Nevertheless, it were impossible to overlook the 
issues raised in the previous Lectures. The apposi- 
tions between science and religion, between criticism 
and faith, furnish a large element to the preestab- 
lished discord that has afHicted man immemorially — 
never more keenly than at this good hour. To 
gain anything like a steady view of the situation on 
the whole, we must refuse to be upset by the insistent 
clamour of discrepant voices. This or that aspect 
of a matter may well disguise, nay conceal, the matter 
itself. The vast extension of knowledge in detail 
admonishes seriously to calm reflexion upon the 
immanent unity. If the fuller apprehension of 
nature and human qualities, acquired these last 
hundred years, compel us to recognize that the 
internal mystery has shifted its centre, it intimates 
also, and no less decisively, that mystery abides much 
as before. One method of solution, one path of 
escape, may have been foreclosed. That is all. 
What method or path ? Let me reply, provisionally, 
as follows (I say, provisionally, because I happen to 
know theologians who could state an excellent case 



THE FREEST ABLISHED DISCORD 1 93 

for their own view, who are equipped fully to look 
after it) . Remembering this, then, suppose we take 
it for granted that the theological constructions, 
common to organized Christianity, are not reconcil- 
able with modern knowledge; suppose we agree to 
treat them, as of historical interest only. I suggest 
this line for two reasons. On the one hand, and 
theoretically, many scientific authorities, followed by 
more students, think thus — the theological attitude 
is prima facie suspect with them. Therefore, they 
conclude that the Christian religion must go by the 
board. Whether this view, advocated openly by 
some few, subconscious with a great company, can 
be maintained, we need not stop to ask. On the 
other hand, and practically, this course is open to 
me, because I am. a layman, as it was not open to the 
clergymen who preceded me, as it may not be open 
to those who follow. Accordingly, let us drop the 
creeds frankly, on the alleged ground that they 
conflict irremediably with the conclusions of the 
scientific consciousness and of the historico-critical 
method. If we proceed thus, the question arises, 
Have we thereby dismissed "Christian truth"? 
The point of viev/ I shall attempt to develop must 
confront this problem. In other words, we abandon 
the apologetic '' defence of Christian truth," as formu- 



194 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

lated traditionally, in favour of an effort after "the 
establishment of Christian truth" by appeal to the 
constitution and active career of human self-con- 
sciousness. Our last 'universe' falls to be explored. 
In the Introductory Lecture we had occasion to 
see that ''man's distinctive mark" proceeds from his 
double nature. The paradox happens to be that 
need and opportunity, failure and fulfilment, root in 
identical conditions. Calm the storm and stress 
thus originated, and religion would lose all meaning. 
Somewhere within its recesses, the character of 
every mature person responds to the heart-breaking 
sigh stereotyped in the words "the good that I 
would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that 
I do." Sooner or later, a human being is forced to 
comment thus, and, as a rule, upon events of the last 
importance to him. 

"Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass, 
Stains the white radiance of eternity." 

Why? Simply because the career, wherein our lot 
expresses itself, appears unable to happen otherwise. 
Nay, the more significant it becomes in individual 
cases, the more it tends to illustrate this condemna- 
tion. We are driven, therefore, to expose the terms 
of the contrast in some detail. 

No one needs to be told that, at present, it is cus- 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 1 95 

tomary to represent the conflict in but one of several 
possible ways, and this rather to the exclusion of 
others. Not only from popular parlance, but also 
from the charmed language of ' the schools,' we are 
apt to discover the opposition outlined broadly thus. 
The universe is two ultimately. One recognizes — 

"that he has two sources of information, — his 
senses and his inner consciousness. When reflecting 
upon the mental processes by which the materials 
supplied by the senses are worked into thought, the 
Mind is watching its own activities. By self-study 
a man acquires a knowledge of knowing, thoughts 
about thinking. He knows that he possesses con- 
sciousness. It is not that he is consciousness — 
merely a concomitant of a certain kind of nerve- 
activity. He owns a consciousness which he can 
direct and control; from which it follows that there 
is a He to own it. But the two sources of information 
must never be confused. The lines of thought for 
which the external and the internal worlds supply 
materials are parallel and neither diverging nor 
converging lines. A man's consciousness gives him 
no more information with regard to his science than 
his senses give him with regard to his consciousness. 
The two worlds are absolutely and permanently 
distinct." ^ 

^ Some Problems of the Day in Natural Science: An Intro- 
duction, Alex. Hill, pp. 26-27. 



196 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

The physical, or energy, the psychical, or conscious- 
ness, present themselves as disparate orders, neither 
reducible to the other. And, when the individual 
comes in question, what holds of the macrocosm 
reappears in the microcosm. The body, with its 
neuroses, stands over against the 'soul,' with its 
psychoses. No causal relation between them exists 
to afford convenient union, and so a symbolic repre- 
sentation of their final unity laughs us ironically into 
compulsory contentment of uneasiness. Flatly, the 
irreducibles remain irreducible. Doubtless, evidence 
abounds for this conclusion, if you regard the phe- 
nomena in a certain way. But, evidence or no, the 
demonstration lacks power to reveal the situation in 
detail. For, in the first place, it is obviously an 
abstract reflexion upon life rather than an exhibition 
of processes in concrete ; and, in the second place, it 
is a judgement on the whole, or in gross. Putting 
the matter otherwise, we may well ask. Does self- 
consciousness in any of its aspects, except the in- 
tellectual possibly, show up thus? Is the artistic, 
or the ethical, or the social, or the psychological, or 
the religious interest amenable to this presentation, 
and to no other? I think we are bound to reply in 
the negative. At all events, convenient as it may be 
to convey synoptically what appears an ultimate 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 197 

opposition, we have earned no right to rest in such a 
proposition prior to some enquiry about constituent 
factors and about definite presuppositions. Nay, 
one might be justified in the further allegation that 
not all evidence tells in just this single direction. 
Is the savage oppressed by the break, or the child? 
Is the average man, in normal moments, burdened 
invariably by a profound sense that ' the physical' and 
* the psychical ' lock in deadly strife ? Is he even aware 
from hour to hour that they fall apart, to move on 
separate planes ? Briefly, is it not true that practice, 
in large, declines to confirm this theory in large? 
Without attempting to pursue the problem, we must 
admit at least that doubt exists. Accordingly, it 
were more to our point — the investigation of 
the ethico-religious consciousness — to dismiss this 
method of approach, approved currently though it 
be, and attempt another line, one less general, more 
calculated to follow the mazes of the plain day's 
work. 

Fortunately, perhaps, we are relieved from search 
for a beginning, our course thus far having left no 
choice. The previous enquiry has served to elicit 
grave, if not alarming, contradictions between the 
deliberate inferences of the scientific consciousness 
and the historico-critical method, on the one hand, 



198 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

and the naive beliefs of numerous — average repre- 
sentative — Christians, on the other. Indeed, as 
we have noticed, this preestabhshed discord con- 
tributes a main element to the unrest of contempo- 
rary culture. Strange as the idea may appear, the 
best way to attempt a resolution lies along the path 
of further contact with discord. For, as yet, its 
possible implications have been kept in the back- 
ground. Thus, we may set out by asking. Does the 
conflict characteristic of human experience become 
deeper when you pursue it into such details as natural 
science and exact history supply than it proves daily 
in the broad simplicities of common sense and even 
of popular philosophy ? Are not science and ' causal ' 
history themselves under a greater condemnation — 
one of the same kind, but acuter, because more 
explicit? Granted all their results, have they it in 
their power to assuage the yearning that produces 
religion? And, if not, can these very results 
remain unaffected in our judgement, especially with 
regard to claims, made for them by many, as vehicles 
of 'explanation'? We shall try to catch a glimpse 
of the principle suggested by these questions ere we 
proceed, in our next Lecture, to grapple with the 
ethical consciousness itself. 
When we review experience, we are struck forth- 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 1 99 

with by the vast complexity of quite obvious ramifica- 
tions. Life has differentiated itself on all sides; it 
revels exuberantly in exfoliating interests, many of 
them prone to dominate at different points or amid 
various circumstances. The primitive union of 
religion with custom and law, with government and 
morals, with philosophy and science, such as patri- 
archal story attests, corresponds to no actual situation 
in modern society. As a consequence, one activity 
may play the title-role on occasion, nay, come to 
masquerade as if it were experience in to to. The 
absorbed scholar, the skilful physician, the busy 
merchant, the ubiquitous politician fall under strong 
temptation to rate everything as intellectual merely, or 
physical, or commercial, or amenable to compromise. 
In every case the same implication rules; men tend 
to treat the familiar as if it were normative, to sup- 
pose that the truth dwells within their sphere of 
influence. Thus, when we take appeal to experience 
we must realize, and, if need be, force ourselves to 
realize, that this centrifugal movement sets our 
worst puzzles. For example, nobody requires close 
intimacy with the votaries of the sciences to learn 
that they evince a habit of assigning prime importance 
to their respective pursuits. Much of the good- 
natured chaff that sweetens academic life, not a little 



200 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of the acidity that sometimes sours it, run back to 
this palpable fact. Briefly, thanks to the progressive 
subdivision of experience, consequent upon ampler 
recognition of its tortuousness, any truth may be 
elevated readily to the plane of the truth. Let us 
probe this curious development a little more deeply. 
Advance in knowledge depends upon awareness of 
problems, of contradictions. Science, as a process 
of investigation, consists in an effort to erase these 
blots upon consistency; as a system, complete so far, 
it surveys conditions of consistency in a particular 
field. If we find that a series of related judgements 
agree among themselves and, in addition, do not 
traverse other judgements proven empirically, we 
are entitled to allege that we possess a fragment of 
truth. Yet, such is the shiftiness of events that wt 
must divide in order to conquer. But division, it so 
happens, implies much more than one notes com- 
monly. Of course, on the face of it, to divide means 
to select, to choose a part from the whole. One 
fails to see as readily that the choice leads also to 
manipulation of the part in a specific way. Method 
arrives upon the scene. For, why choose? The 
physicist, to cite a case, preserves discreet silence 
about the odours, colours, and tastes of his objects. 
His world, when organized in truth, turns out some- 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 20I 

thing totally different from the world patent to the 
average man. The plain inferences of common sense 
occupy no place here. Nevertheless, your physicist 
not only can, but does, enjoy eau de Cologne, beau 
brocade, and chartreuse with the same zest as his 
guileless neighbour. His science knows nothing 
about such qualities; at the same time, the qualities 
remain in his experience exactly as in that of the hon 
viveur. It demands no insight to understand why — 
they have been disregarded pure and simple. Now, 
no science could remain science on the basis of 
such cavalier procedure. So it becomes apparent 
immediately that they have been disregarded for 
apposite reasons. Physics confines itself deliber- 
ately to quantitative investigations of special events 
in experience. By this self-denying ordinance its 
exponents hope to formulate results that would be 
beyond reach were qualitative differences permitted 
to intervene. That is, to conquer, the enquirer di- 
vides and, by consequence, holds the division for 
absolute in some directions. And if, as all would 
admit at once, physics be a more ' exact ' science than 
biology, the reason lurks here. Biological material, 
by its very constitution, defies us to omit qualitative 
reference without ceremony. New qualities do pre- 
sent themselves, which cannot be foreseen like '' prop- 



202 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

erties of matter." Hence, plainly, the larger part 
played by mathematics in physical science and, on 
the contrary, the greater constructive importance of 
experiment in biology. Thus selection proves to be 
no hare choice, it spills over into angle of outlook and 
method of procedure, both adopted with conscious 
intent. 

I hope I have made it clear that anything worthy 
the name science — be it astronomy, chemistry, 
psychology, or history — proceeds upon a specific 
agreement a quo. Experience must submit to dis- 
ruption if truths be in demand. As matter of record, 
every science adopts this plan at the outset. But 
the rank and file even of educated men fail to notice 
that the plan conditions the conclusion also. For 
instance, I am quite able to follow the chemist when 
he says that an atom of copper or of oxygen is capable 
of conveying a quantity of electricity twice as great as 
that conveyed by an atom of hydrogen or of iodine. 
I take it for granted from him that the atomic theory 
offers an ultimate description of the events he has 
segregated in his selected universe. But, at the same 
time, I have no difficulty in agreeing with the moralist 
when he says that definite rights bring definite obli- 
gations, and that these obligations are capable of 
expression in the form of commandments. I take 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 203 

it for granted from him that the theory of a " kingdom 
of ends" — of beings who are never mere means, 
but possess a purposive career — offers an ultimate 
description of the events he segregates in his selected 
universe. Nevertheless, I notice instantly that the 
truth of the one proposition lacks application utterly 
in the region where the other reigns supreme. The two 
judgements circle, quite apart ; yet, both belong equally 
to common life, — the one holds no more truth than 
the other. Essentially, then, each is true only under 
partial conditions. Neither runs freely through the 
entire range of experience. Moral atoms and chemical 
persons cannot be even figments of the wildest im- 
agination.^ The divided universe abides divided. 
Now I am anxious to have you understand that a 
large proportion of contemporary difficulty about 
reHgious belief originates precisely from suppositions 
on all fours with the absurd idea that moral atoms 
and chemical persons not only exist, but are the sole 
real existences. Science and religion have been 
conversing in unknown tongues, with the familiar 
consequence — complete, and mutual, unintelligibil- 
ity. How so ? We may answer the question, first, by 
reference to the preestablished discord of experience 

^ Although Huxley did forget himself once so far as to think 
not (cf. Works, vol. i, p. 275). 



204 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

as it issues in Naturalism. For here we find a typical 
case illustrating the illegitimate, if inevitable, trans- 
mutation of a truth into the truth. 

Men live through series of events numerous beyond 
calculation, and complex beyond immediate compre- 
hension. So long as the welter and involution run 
riot, it is hopeless to extract explanations more sat- 
isfactory than brilliant — or fooHsh — guesses. A 
febrile patient betrays delirium — we suppose that 
an evil spirit possesses him ; a man may not marry his 
aunt — we suppose that a divine command interdicts ; 
an eclipse occurs — we suppose that a dragon has 
supped on the sun; a volcanic eruption overtakes a 
city midmost work and play — we suppose that some 
irate Titan, dwelling beyond the skies, has hinted 
disapproval of the stock exchange, or of faro and 
bridge. And so long as we permit events to over- 
whelm us wholesale, so long we must continue to 
invent myths. Accordingly, in its last analysis, 
science comprises no more — and no less — than a 
concentrated effort to understand a group of like 
facts, by isolating them from the bewildering mob, 
and thinking about them with rigid consistency. The 
human intent here is to gain mastery, to dispel igno- 
rance, to discover means that may lessen our terrible 
impotence. Thus We see clearly why, in its very 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 205 

nature, science cannot but be abstract. Experience 
meets us in such doubtful guise that, unless we sepa- 
rate a part from the whole and treat it, for our immedi- 
ate purposes, as if it were still the whole, we are bogged 
in intellectual and practical babyhood. Any science 
one cares to name afnrms its particular subject-matter, 
and its particular aim, in opposition primarily to the 
necessary vagueness of the empirical sum-total. It 
claims the right to construct its own special purview, 
and stands ready to be judged by results. Candidly, 
it starts from and ends with a hypothesis. If the 
conditions governing the events selected for examina- 
tion be so and so, then such and such consequences 
may, usually do, ensue. But these conditions find 
place in the chosen sphere only. A physics of faith, 
an ethics of granite, are imaginary and inapplicable. 

Take a familiar illustration. The astronomer 
avers that the moon "must be revolving in a nearly 
circular path round the earth as centre." Un- 
doubtedly, this seems a most innocent and incontes- 
table proposition. It recommends itself quickly to 
all except the crank whose ' perception ' proves the 
earth flat. Nevertheless, the slightest examination 
serves to convince that the statement can mean some- 
thing only if certain eliminations be permitted. In 
other words, the ' universe ' where the judgement holds 



206 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

true is the creation of what we may term the astro- 
nomical intellect. For, on a little reflexion, we find 
the sun productive of perturbations such that the 
alleged path of our satellite continues but a moment 
on the arc of any given circle and, immediately after- 
wards, follows that of another, and so on indefinitely. 
Now this sum of hypothetical positions might combine, 
conceivably, to produce a waving curve circular on 
the whole — "a series of curves with their concave 
sides downwards." Yet, even so, the earth happens 
to be speeding its impressive whirl about the sun; 
accordingly, admit this second disturbance, and the 
"circular on the whole" conveys no meaning what- 
ever. Further, the sun acts like a giant locomotive, 
pulling the solar system ''through the heavens" at 
fearsome pace, relative to the positions of other stars. 
Moreover, as astronomy itself has come to know well 
recently, these other stars are active participants in 
the sublime procession. Import all your conditions, 
and you are bound to confess that you are as ignorant 
of the moon's orbit about its primary as you are of all 
that lies — 

" Beyond the path of the utmost star through utter dark- 
ness hurled." 

Is the astronomer, then, a kind of amiable lunatic? 
By no means — any mariner will tell you that he is a 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 207 

most useful animal; for, has he not pointed out that 
this very motion of the moon furnishes a master-clock, 
to keep tab on the chronometers during a long voyage ? 
Nor is the implied contradiction so extraordinary as 
it appears. To obtain unified knowledge, the as- 
tronomer has adopted a certain method of procedure, 
one so well understood as to be conventional — that 
is all. Perhaps, indeed, he presumed too much on 
the capacity of the layman in his positive statement. 
For, what he intended to say was this: if you have 
two masses such as the earth and the moon, constitut- 
ing a system in which the primary and the satellite 
move at a mean distance of 240,000 miles; and if 
their motions be not perturbed by interference, then 
the path of the moon with the earth as centre will be 
nearly circular. Granted, some wiseacre will argue, 
but what right has the astronomer to eliminate these 
known perturbations? The reply is, This is the es- 
sential method of science. If, within any group of 
empirical events, you fimd it possible to cancel con- 
comitant phenomena, because they do not create dis- 
turbance sufficient to compel an accounting, then, for 
practical purposes, you may treat them as non-existent. 
Otherwise, advance in knowledge would be impossible. 
And, mutatis mutandis, the younger sciences follow 
their venerable sister — to them she offers a type of 



208 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

* exact ' work. Nay, if they could but translate their 
synopses into the terms of her vast simplicity, they 
would compass assurance uncloyed by hesitation. 

It will not surprise us to learn, then, that no cau- 
tious scientific man transgresses his self-imposed 
limits. He refuses to affirm that his conclusions, 
or those of his science, suffice to explain the totality 
of experience. Sensible of irrevocable conditions, 
lie will not commit himself to more than this : ' Permit 
me to concentrate attention upon a group of similar 
or identical events; permit me to discard all indi- 
vidual (maybe freakish) factors within this group in- 
considerable enough to disturb unitary grasp; this 
agreed, I undertake to tell, nay, to foretell, what is 
very likely to happen within the circle of known or 
observed phenomena. Natural laws embody human 
judgements; cause is an indispensable tool in man's 
intellectual armoury; a hypothesis is a provisional 
arrangement and, as provisional, becomes a goad to 
further enquiry, to more thorough reflexion. In its 
own proper function, science knows nothing about 
law, or cause, or hypothesis as such, much less about 
"the moral order of the universe," or about God. 
Competent in variable degrees, dependent upon op- 
portunity for investigation and possibility of formula- 
tion, the sciences lay no claim to dictate in other fields. 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 209 

They keep the peace among themselves. The sane 
physiologist would not go about to advance his work 
by bullying the psychologist, even although their pur- 
suits intersect. In other words, a cardinal principle 
of the scientific temper is non-interference, because 
what holds in one sphere may prove a hindrance in 
another, or, peradventure, a source of active error. 
You cannot universalize a 'positive' science. The 
procedure would evaporate all the characteristics 
that make it worth while.' 

But, if I have contrived to render the position evi- 
dent, what is to be said about the touted menagerie 
of quasi-scientific bogies that has toured the Western 
world these last eighty years ? What of MateriaHsm, 
Agnosticism, Naturalism, and so forth — the bloodless 
centaurs that still harry hapless humanity ? I would 
venture the guess that, possibly, they are a troop of 
hallucinations bred by auto-suggestion upon self- 
confidence. Recent thought has won its most superb 
conquests on the broad field of positive science. In- 
toxicated by success, its memory needs to be jogged 
on the subject of the conditions precedent to ' progress ' 
in studies of this kind. For all these rampageous 
'isms,' if tracked to their common lair, prove very 
innocuous beasts. One of them — Materialism — 
met ruthless death recently; and the others, para- 



2IO MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

doxically, are more difficult and more easy to slay for 
one and the same reason. More difficult, because 
Materialism did possess what purported to be a body; 
more easy, because in them many frantic lovers have 
contrived to give — 

" to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name ; " 

and love offers no atmosphere to criticism. Yet the 
delusions yield to rather elementary scepticism — in 
fact, after all the pother, this is their disappointing 
feature. We are met by another instance of popular 
metaphysicizing and, as usual, of self-deception. 
Experience was fated to humbug itself. 

Any science, that is, any body of judgements about 
a part of experience, becomes self-contradictory, if 
you insist that it transform itself into a rational 
account of experience as a whole. Nay, it might be 
maintained that, precisely in proportion as a science 
conforms to the ideal of 'exactness,' it declines in 
truth when universalized, just because it is less able 
to grasp, or adjust, individual cases. The more we 
can eliminate from the group peculiar to a special 
science, the more 'exact' the possible results; but, 
conversely, the less is the science equipped to present 
in detail the larger whole whence it fissured at first. 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 211 

The personal escapes it; so let us be personal for a 
moment. It is interesting, no doubt, to learn that 
Mr. Taft weighs nigh three hundred pounds. Yet 
this numerical evaluation informs us no whit on his 
present meaning — it is silent upon the ' how ' of 
his nomination to the Presidency of the United States. 
We are glad to know, as an additional fact, that 
Senator Fairbanks exceeds the average American in 
height. But, thanks to the incurable vulgarity of 
the press, his supposititious addiction to "butter- 
milk highballs" counted far more emphatically in 
his descent from the perilous levels of haute politique. 
That is to say, the weight and the height are true, 
with incomparable truth, in their proper places, for 
they may count as paragons of the 'exact.' They 
are thus true, however, at the cost of desperate 
poverty, when it comes to social issues in the concrete. 
The veriest yokel would bubble with mirth were one 
to suggest solemnly that they told " the whole truth." 
Unseemly and rude jest aside, Mr. Taft does not 
connote mere girth, Mr. Fairbanks mere length. 
Now, the putative fathers of Naturalism have com- 
mitted themselves to just this Gilbertian fancy, and 
have contrived to affiliate upon respectable science a 
precious family of infant encumbrances. It were 
well to remember that, within her own household, 



212 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

no responsibility can be saddled on science. Natural- 
ism is the latest gift of the ghostly stork, a tribute to 
the generative power of the preestablished discord 
immanent in frail human experience. 

Strangely enough, Naturalism results primarily, 
not from the analysis of physical facts, but from the 
pressure of ideal demands. In a measure, the very 
existence of science renders it inevitable; a supra- 
scientific synthesis comes forth to crown minor 
syntheses. For, scientific enquiry finds its dominant 
motive in the desire to reach complete accuracy. 
Self-sustained and self-witnessing unification of- 
fers the sole end worth pursuit. But, just on this 
account, human experience becomes a house divided 
against itself. The aim thus projected under 
stress of circumstances may be attained so far, yet 
at a round price. Man must agree to walk the strait 
road of stringent rule. He must adopt a literal 
interpretation of the familiar maxim — this one 
thing I do. Perforce, other things are jettisoned 
ruthlessly. Accuracy after its kind may ensue, but 
only at the expense of constant elimination. Thus 
the scientific labourer finds his ideal incarnate in a 
definite type of work, governed by equally definite 
method. To these he conforms, whether he recog- 
nize his course fully or not. A distinguished physiol- 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 213 

ogist of my acquaintance slipped the cat from the bag 
in conversation with me once. We were debating 
the difhcuhies incident to various classes of research, 
when he exclaimed suddenly, not without emotion, 
"If only my subject were like physics, how easy it 
would be to determine the facts." He implied, of 
course, that, if he could simplify his material by 
exclusion, many of his insoluble problems would 
disappear. He failed to see, however, that the re- 
mainder would not afford problems in physiology. 
Given the same conditions, were this practicable, 
there is no reason why the physiologist should miss 
the ' exact ' as the physicist views it. And here we 
have a most significant intimation. Most naturally, 
the physico-chemical standard of 'exact' knowledge 
appeals to workers in other fields as the ideal norm 
regulating their conformity. Historically, celestial 
mechanics furnished the methods of measurement in 
space and computation in time that enabled science 
to start upon its conquering career. Hence, too, the 
negative side of the same notion. Many competent 
masters in the exact sciences cannot conceive how 
history or sociology — much less philosophy — have 
remote title to a place in the realm of 'positive' study. 
Nevertheless, they betray no consciousness of the 
apposition between an ideal that motivates all 



214 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

research, and the conditions that conspire at once to 
satisfy and to stultify it. So, despite logic, the partial 
satisfaction, lying within reach, comes to be grasped, 
while the precedent, and indispensable, restrictions 
to space and time, that produce stultification outside 
this limited range, lapse into oblivion. Amid the 
excitement of pursuit, men forget that the nature of 
its starting-point forces their chase into endlessness. 
The implied problem evaporates, because — 

" Stultus ab obliquo qui quum descendere possit, 
Pugnat in adversas ire natator aquas." 

If we are to be 'exact-scientific,' as our German 
friends say, what conditions frame the ideal? As 
we have seen, it is out of the question to reach any 
'exact' conclusion except on a basis of deliberate 
simplification. For this reason, the conditions prove 
comparatively simple, all things considered. They 
are (i) stability or identity for human consciousness 
of the objects studied; (2) ready application of 
measurement and enumeration; (3) continuity of 
the segregated phenomena on the whole. Granted 
that all men can seize essential marks of the chosen 
objects in the same way; granted that series of 
observations can be averaged and stored in mathe- 
matical formulas; granted that the adopted series be 



THE FREEST ABLISHED DISCORD 215 

continuous — that it be divisible into portions by 
any one of its terms, yet without a ' real ' break, and 
that, therefore, any term may be referred to another 
as its precise consequent; then you obtain a flow of 
inevitable sequences, and partial induction may be 
lifted to the level of confident prediction. In short, 
you possess a scheme which works admirably within 
its range. Moreover, you are bound to admit its 
competence so long as it keeps its own comer of the 
garden. So far, so good. But the question arises 
forthwith. What follows from the admission, or 
adoption, of these self-denying ordinances necessary 
to 'exact' results? The answer lies on the surface. 
Let us take the requirements successively. 

(i) What kind of information about any objects 
do all men possess in common? Plainly they know 
such characters as are dependent upon the external 
senses or, otherwise, such as are capable of expression 
in unequivocal symbols. Conceptions differ enor- 
mously from individual to individual, but perceptions 
possess a relative identity, stable enough for practical 
purposes. I cannot, by any alchemy, transfer my 
concrete mental, moral, and emotional states to 
another; but I can illustrate some few of them by 
means of symbols that hold universally for the special 
senses. No unity of experience is practicable for 



2l6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

a knowledge compressible into precise terms, except 
the very general judgements based upon the organ- 
ism of percipients. What we call spiritual life, for 
example, is so acutely personal as to evade simple 
transfer from man to man. Accordingly, for the 
purposes of science, the unity of experience means 
no more than the average identity of impressions of 
sense. Hence, of course, the crude doctrine, that 
experience is these impressions, and naught besides. 
The real fact happens to be that we have restricted 
experience ourselves, by adopting a specific attitude 
towards it, for a concerted and entirely justifiable 
purpose. The preestablished discord, that is, pivots 
upon an attempt to extrude the ideal element, in 
order to arrive at an ideal. Deny the ideal, in an 
effort to universalize the partial position, and illusion 
becomes the unavoidable consequence. The scien- 
tific transcription is true on its own recognizances, but 
misses application to the ideal process whereon this 
truth depends. Sense averages are predicable of 
sense averages; the effort to employ them elsewhere 
occasions the worst stultifications of misunder- 
standing. 

(2) The call for the reduction to standards of 
number and measurement flows directly from what is 
known as the Law of Parsimony. Among its many 



THE FREEST ABLISHED DISCORD 217 

invaluable services, positive science has devised a 
magnificent scheme of syncopation. Given an 
'exact' result, given the means of reproducing it 
unchanged, and you may adopt it fearlessly as the 
sure basis for further work. You inherit the harvest 
of the ages for your use. Now, we cannot store our 
imaginations, loves, sorrows, in this fashion. Hence 
their intense strain upon temperament. But we can 
minimize intellectual labour, by employing the tri- 
umphs of our predecessors, in relation to events 
capable of retention by terms of number and magni- 
tude. Omit the specifically human, treat those of 
'our' events in which we stand on a level with the 
rest of the cosmos and become accidents of it, as 
if they alone spoke our secret, and you can formulate 
per X and y with thoroughgoing success. Still, 
remember all the while that you can so proceed only 
with regard to "many-one relations of all times to 
some places, or of all terms of a continuous one- 
dimensional series / to some terms of a continuous 
three-dimensional series 5." ^ Here, once again, an 
ideal has dictated the means to its own realization; 
these means, as applied irrationally to all experience 
by Naturalism, expel the ideal reference. And so, 

^ The Principles of Mathematics, Bertrand Russell, vol. i, 
P- 473- 



2l8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

when one tries to universalize them, the illusion 
prevails that the ideally arranged conditions furnish 
irrefragable proof of the non-existence of the ideal. 

(3) The demands just noticed concern the nature 
of experience itself. The third bears another refer- 
ence. It asks that the object of knowledge assume 
a nature of its own — that it must he continuous. 
In the present connexion, I cannot diverge to pur- 
sue the necessary analysis, for it leads straight to 
the difficult and, frankly, ill-understood, problem of 
causality. One would suppose that, at this late date, 
Hume had contrived to clear men's minds of cant 
about cause; unfortunately it is not so. Notwith- 
standing, it is clear that, unless a series of phenomena 
be continuous, the connexion of one event (as effect) 
with another (as cause) transcends possibility. 
Causes and effects, as such, are bound to rank as 
occurrences in a single, seamless process. Apart 
from this texture, 'exact' science would prove the 
merest dream. Now, the 'fact' owes its existence, 
not to a universal series, but to a special series sys- 
tematized ideally in a certain way. A logical prin- 
ciple of synthetic unity betrays its presence in causal- 
ity — or there are neither causes nor effects. Thus, 
to obtain our results of precision, we posit an ideal 
truth; and then, in our naive Naturalism, proceed 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 219 

to deny the ideal on the basis of its own consequences. 
I know this is not philosophy, I should be "black 
ashamed" were I compelled to suppose it science. 

On the whole, then, and from the nature of the 
case, Naturalism offers but another example of the 
preestablished discord that overtakes men whenever 
they try to explain their 'universe' by reference even 
to their best knowledge of a small part thereof. 
Further, it happens to be no conclusion from any, or 
from all, science. Fundamentally, it is a meta- 
physical speculation invented to account for the 
presence of the ideal eliminations under which 
science originates and must proceed. Huxley's 
brilliant analogy of the garden which, though a 
"result of the cosmic process, working through and 
by human energy, the influences of the state of nature 
are constantly tending to destroy," ^ offers an ad- 
mirable illustration of the inner contradiction that 
drives humanity to seek rest, not in a lesser whole 
universalized illegitimately, but in the broad sweep 
of a larger life. Yet the pure intellect fails to absorb 
the lesson ere it has ventured upon the universalizing 
process, oblivious of the initial restrictions that made 
its practical use successful. But when, overcome 
by the deep and inevitable contradictions that arise, 

^ Cf. Evolution and Ethics: Collected Works, vol. ix, pp. 9 f. 



220 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

it proceeds, as it did at last in Huxley's person and 
swan-song, to try again in an ethical realm, it simply 
obeys the necessary logic born of its analytic devices, 
which accomplish results by open neglect of re- 
mainders. For Naturalism "begins with real bodies 
in empty space, and ends with ideal motions in an 
imperceptible plenum. It begins with the dynamics 
of ordinary masses, and ends with a medium that 
needs no dynamics or has dynamics of its own. But 
between beginning and end, there are stages innumer- 
able; in other words, the end is an unattainable 
ideal." ^ A tale that is told. Naturalism may be 
dismissed with a tale. A Scot, given to the vices of 
his folk, informed his minister that he intended to 
travel in Bible lands. "When I climb tae the top of 
Mt. Sinai," he added, " I'm gaen for tae read the Ten 
Commandments." The wise and witty parson re- 
plied, "Man, Sandy, ye'd faur better bide at hame 
and keep them." If the representatives of the posi- 
tive sciences would stick to their last, — and, re- 
mark, the best usually do, — advance would not be 
stayed, to say the least; and we should not have to 
encounter delays due to bewildering fogs of bad 
metaphysics. As Professor Mach has pointed out, 

^ Naturalism and Agnosticism, James Ward, vol. i, p. 153 
(ist ed.). 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 221 

"the highest philosophy of the scientific investigator 
is precisely toleration for an incomplete conception of 
the world and the preference for it, rather than an 
apparently perfect but inadequate conception." ^ 
But, worse luck, man is not built this way. He 
must criticise his scientific categories; and he finds 
frequent vent for his need in the supposition that 
their transfer to a suprascientific field constitutes 
criticism. Nay, he spurns deliverance from this 
body of death. Naturalism, the executioner of the 
ideal life, remains a standing witness to this very life 
— only it stands on its head. Its easy psychology, 
beatified in epiphenomenalism, fails to transcribe 
the concrete facts of the psychical process, and dis- 
plays laughable contentment with a conspectus of 
parts riven from the whole. Still, it were worse 
than useless to complain. For, once again, we 
are — 

"Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound." 

In conclusion, we pass to the decisions of the his- 
torico-critical method. At the close of a lecture, it is 
far from my intention to canvass one of the most 
difficult problems now before the human mind — the 
ultimate import of history, and the consequent re- 

^ The Science of Mechanics, p. 464 (2d Eng. ed.). 



222 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

lation of precise historical knowledge to the validity 
of religious belief/ For the question necessitates a 
profound critical excursus into the legitimate mean- 
ings of the terms 'Time' and 'Eternity.' Besides, 
philosophy herself stands but on the threshold of 
this baffling subject. However, I must try to ex- 
hibit the movement of the preestablished discord 
within the historical range. It infects the stand- 
point of history, when universalized, no less than 
the popular metaphysics of science. When the rude 
facts concerning Jesus, as adjusted with cool accu- 
racy by historical method, are taken, and when the 
'historical' allegations as formulated in the Apos- 
tles' Creed, say, are placed in juxtaposition, but one 
inference can follow. It is this. Christians of the 
traditional type seem to have been fated to make 
tarts from Dead Sea fruit. What was, as the actual 
record runs, is neither what they are required to 
believe, nor what many of them desire it to have been. 
Cook the ingredients as you will, the brew smacks of 
anticlimax. Mutat quadratarotundis, as Horace said. 
As an evident consequence, we encounter the pre- 
established discord in another of its ubiquitous 

^ I may be permitted to refer to my paper, Historic Fact and 
Christian Validity, read in part at the Detroit meeting of the 
American Church Congress, May 14, 1908, and printed in full 
in the Proceedings. 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 223 

phases, one distressing beyond measure to all faith- 
ful souls. It were well worth while, accordingly, to 
pursue it, if only a short way. 

What is the consensus of opinion about history 
among experts, whose competence guarantees their 
right to testify? The reply admits of no doubt. 
History is, first and foremost, a series in time. As 
such, it presents two characteristics, so essential 
that, apart from them, it would become a vapid 
phantasmagoria. It is single, and irreversible. In 
other words, it must conform to the demand for 
continuity, just like the material of physical science, 
and its terms must interlock in some form of causal 
relation. Given these conditions, and history falls 
within the circle of practicable research; withdraw 
them, and the science goes to pieces. That is, 
history betrays determination after its kind and, 
within the sweep of the determination, the parts 
played by single events or individuals may be re- 
duced to the level of accidents. They hold no sort 
of virtue in their own right, as it were, because their 
hammered concatenation in the sequence alone be- 
stows significance. The ''fatalism of facts," fore- 
seen long ago by Quinet, rules now, a conditio sine 
qud non. As we saw in the case of science, so in 
that of history, it were worse than useless to vent 



224 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

complaint. For the complainants inhabit outer 
darkness, as concerns ability to sit in judgement. 
We might just as well carp at the physicist, and 
refuse to have water led into our houses, because 
water does not rise to its own level, as dismiss 
the historian, learned in the 'causes' of the Boston 
Tea Party. In practice, we agree with both. Why ? 
Because both can plead the same justification 
for the conditions necessary to their craft; with- 
out the antecedent standpoint, neither science nor 
history could exist to serve mankind. Remove 
continuity and cause, you shatter the very possi- 
bility of history. Vague generalities, a priori ab- 
stractions, idealistic formulas, never give body to 
history; on the contrary, they cloud the factual 
issues. Take Augustine's delicate fancy: ''Deus 
. . . ita ordinem saeculorum tanquam pulcherrimum 
carmen etiam ex quibusdam quasi antithetis hones- 
taret;" ^ it may rank as excellent poetic license — 
about real history it tells less than nothing. A series 
of causal filiations never moves even remotely like 
rhetorical 'contraposition,' as Quintilian called it. 
Along with all other objects amenable to a single 
systematic order, historical units happen under the 
strait limits of space and time. To write history is 

^ De Civ. Dei, xi, i8. 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 225 

to uncover the causal filaments, by inexhaustible 
diligence in amassing the incidental occurrences, 
by impartial judgement of evidence and, on this 
basis, to elicit 'explanation' of the facts from the 
correlations traceable within their own process. 
The death of this man, therefore, ranks on a level 
with the death of that. Find the relevant circum- 
stances, follow the phenomenal interplay and, 
irreversible sequence given, events will be found 
to explain themselves on the same general lines. 
Nothing remains to be added. Anything else 
would transcend the canons of history, ipso facto, 
history would cease. Within this purview, on the 
face of it, no demise of an individual can acquire 
exceptional meaning for religion. And, as for posi- 
tive science, so for history, we are bound to accept 
its own account of itself without reserve. Encased 
in crass ignorance of every method and canon of 
judgement used, the average man dare not do less. 
His practice shows his sense; he takes his history, 
as he takes his train — on its own terms. 

Nevertheless, time out of mind, organized Chris- 
tianity has insisted that a tiny morsel of history, 
minute in time, circumscribed in space, be wrenched 
from the vast series and exempted from normal 
conditions. Splendide audax, as only the oblivious 

Q 



226 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

can be, the official Christian bases his hope of sal- 
vation upon some few obscure happenings, of which 
we know almost nothing, in an obscure corner of 
the ]\iediterranean world, of which we know little. 
He alleges that they were historical occurrences, 
abnormal to infinity. And yet, as ' exact' history sees 
these things, less than no evidence exists to raise them 
from the rank and file marching in causal sequence. 
Moreover, the adherents of other ethnic religions 
have set, and followed, the same example. The 
historical attitude to Buddhism and Mahommedan- 
ism stands on all fours with its ultimatum to Chris- 
tianity. Could the preestablished discord go far- 
ther, or make us fare worse? I think not. For, 
consider the tremendous character of the apposi- 
tion. Historically, Jesus was a man, born like 
other Jews, circumstanced as his neighbours; a 
disturber of civil peace — tried, condemned, and 
executed like other undesirables; then a corpse, 
entombed, and returned to dust like other corpses. 
Yet, for Christianity, despite the prosaic noncha- 
lance of historical facts, " God so loved the world, 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
lasting life"; and, "If Christ be not risen from the 
dead, then your faith is in vain." Again, I ask. 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 227 

could discord go farther ? * Evidently, the events 
as possible within any causal time-series, and the 
affirmations of belief, move on two totally different 
planes. Notwithstanding, Christians have been for- 
ward to urge that their religion finds its sole sure 
basis within the time-series where, historically, it 
cannot belong, by any admission open to contempo- 
rary knowledge. Further, the Christian allegation 
is not susceptible of proof by objective evidence, 
nay, the evidence now recoverable has been turned 
against it with terrible effect. The appeal to his- 
tory, once taken so confidently, has declined to the 
dismal level of a cry ad misericordiam — ' for any 
sake, and in the name of anything you hold holy, 
allow the probability or, at least, the possibility, of 
our plea' ! Verily, a situation profoundly pathetic ! 
It needs no keen perspicacity to see that here, as 
with the scientific consciousness, the preestablished 
discord has eventuated in an impassable chasm. 
As the conditions precedent to * exact ' science baulk 
the satisfaction of desire to rationalize the universe, 
so the standpoint inseparable from causal history 
vetoes the longing of religion to detect a special 

^ It is hardly necessary to point out that this discord underlies 
the problem of Christology in its classical forms (cf. my article 
Christology, in Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology). 



228 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

revelation in some events incident to the hazy past. 
But the cases are not parallel entirely. Driven by 
the innate human demand for an explanation of all 
things, the scientific consciousness attempts self- 
satisfaction by spinning a theory out of enumerations 
in time and measurements in space — limitations 
inapplicable to any consciously presented kosmos 
whatsoever. As a result, men are condemned to 
labour in a quarry for fallacies. Driven by the 
human demand for a definite guarantee of the com- 
pletion which religion seeks, the Christian attempts 
self-satisfaction by transfiguring a fragment torn 
from the temporal series of history, where religion, 
as contact with the eternal, cannot abide. As a 
result, men find themselves abandoned, defenceless, 
to the panoplied assault of rationalism. The same 
effort of human nature, to achieve an inclusive ex- 
perience, results in the same discord, though by dif- 
ferent processes. 

Thus, the preliminary stage of our constructive en- 
quiry appears to end in a stalemate. Yet we have 
gained something. In the first place, and nega- 
tively, we have found that a mechanical phenome- 
nalism, confined to quantitative forms in space and 
time, cannot furnish means to formulate an expla- 
nation of experience on the whole. It omits the 



THE FREEST ABLISHED DISCORD 229 

very things most in need of explanation, and without 
this omission could not proceed with its own work. 
Beyond its chosen range it is helpless, because 
quite impracticable, when individual variations call 
for an accounting. In the second place, and still 
negatively, we have found that Christian phenome- 
nalism, which would set the fundamental truths of 
religion in an irreversible time-series, is helpless to 
discover them there, without destruction of the 
entire posited series. In the third place, and posi- 
tively, we have found that both movements issue 
from an inalienable need of our nature, and that, 
forced by its clamour to these issues, men become 
entangled in insoluble contradictions. Nothing else 
could come of essays either to make the conceptions 
of 'exact' science include the entire content of 
experience, or the sources of historical knowledge — 
knowledge about a religion — the principal and 
normative content of religion itself. Accordingly, 
we have travelled so far as to be able to rid ourselves 
of a self-stultifying Naturalism, which cannot pro- 
ceed from an abstract universe, 'outside' conscious- 
ness supposedly, to the universal in consciousness. 
But we have not succeeded in ridding ourselves of 
self-contradictory religious supernaturalism, which 
cannot proceed from a timeless universe to an event 



230 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

at once in time and unmediated by time. We have 
been able to see also that the root of error is the same 
in both cases — the imperative call of human expe- 
rience for self-satisfaction, baulked, however, by 
unawareness of the precedent conditions. By its 
very nature, no mathematical computation can com- 
pass the ethico-religious consciousness. By its very 
nature, no unit incidental to an irreversible order 
can pose as quod semper ^ quod ubique, et quod ah 
omnibus. Specific historical events command cre- 
dence only on specific historical evidence; and per- 
sonal religion has no measure in common with such 
events. We must insist over and over again that 
the religious object cannot be prisoned within the 
integument of historical science. Yet Christians 
have cherished the supposition that they would 
find it here more completely than elsewhere. The 
consequent puzzle pays but another tribute to the 
immanent process that governs the preestablished 
discord. 

We are driven, therefore, to "try the great ocean" 
of the ethico-religious consciousness itself. Mayhap 
we shall fare better; for, if no more, at least man 
has illustrated the activities most characteristic of 
his peculiar being on this limitless area. Perhaps, 
we shall discover reason to conclude that, while all 



THE PREESTABLISHED DISCORD 23 1 

that is temporal exists, not all that exists is temporal. 
If so, we ought to be in a position to transcend 
'exact' history. Perhaps, we may come to under- 
stand that the future, rather than the past, sets the 
norms of the religious career. If so, we might be 
able to regard causal reference in time, not as a 
negligible quantity, indeed, but as a subordinate 
function. 



LECTURE VI 

THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 

Any one who has tried to reach consistent ideas 
on the thorny subject, would agree readily that the 
ethical consciousness presents grievous difficulties. 
Its elusive movement seems to mock with subtler 
irony, the more faithfully one follows. And, if this 
be true for the careful student, who aims at a uni- 
tary construction, it strikes home, no less sharply, 
to the ordinary observer, or actor, in common life. 
Customary affairs of conduct produce numerous 
dilemmas from hour to hour. How often the de- 
cent citizen finds himself in a strait between two, 
and asks, Who will show me the good? Baffled 
thus on both sides, which together exhaust the field, 
small wonder that we should hesitate when com- 
pelled to seek a point of departure for our enquiry. 
Moral situations afford few decisive hints, thanks 
to their differentiated multiplicity; moral philoso- 
phies turn out so various, and so personal, as to 
furnish no foothold satisfactory to all. By good 

232 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 233 

luck, however, especially in the present connexion, 
religion itself has been prone to display an unmis- 
takable attitude towards the relative value of the 
moral life. Moreover, whether we select religious 
theory, as illustrated in theology, or religious prac- 
tice, as followed by the Church, this disposition 
makes itself felt, with significant consequences. 
Here, at all events, our feet touch solid ground. 
Accordingly, I invite you to approach the ethical 
consciousness by way of two questions, put into our 
lips by religion, not least by Christianity. In the 
first place. Why have the ethnic religions tended 
more or less strongly — but tended quite plainly on 
the whole — to relegate moral conduct to a plane 
of secondary importance? No doubt, none of 
them dismiss it as if it were negligible; often they 
stress, even strain, it — we have all heard of "the 
Law," and of Christian Ethics. Nevertheless, it 
hardly ranks with ''the one thing needful." In the 
second place. Why has the Church met such move- 
ments as 'Ethical Culture' with active hostility, 
or with impatience, or with almost open contempt? 
Or, coming down to date. Why do so many reli- 
gious folk shake their heads troublously over that 
recent development baptized, by a delightful pleo- 
nasm, the "institutional church"? Were all these 



234 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

modern phenomena merely fresh eddies on the 
broken surface of our evanescent day, they might 
signify little. But it seems unquestionable that, 
after religion has attained a certain stage of self- 
consciousness, has grown aware clearly of its dis- 
tinctive nature, this attitude settles into a perma- 
nent characteristic. Nay, evidence could be led 
for the thesis that, in proportion as religion realizes 
itself adequately, the subordination of the ethical 
standpoint receives emphasis. Pray note, I am 
not raising the problem of the ultimate relation 
between religion and morality. I am only drawing 
attention to the patent fact, that, in its large sweep, 
religion tends to regard moral conduct as of inferior 
importance to something else — what, we need not 
enquire just now; and that, as religion reaches 
completer expression in degree, this inclination 
appears to become a regulative factor in its explicit 
outlook. Sharpened by these pregnant hints, we 
may start — fairly enough, I think — with the 
question. What justification, if any, has religion for 
such procedure? Obviously, all things considered, 
the situation warrants not a little curiosity. For, 
why should religion behave superciliously to morals ? 
At the outset, it must be understood distinctly 
that religion does not censure the moral life, but 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 235 

rather denies its authoritative validity within some 
regions. Kinship is admitted; and it were ad- 
visable to dwell on this aspect of the case for a 
moment. Family jars often go deepest, intimate 
most. A doctrine, by no means extinct to-day, 
teaches that, while morality may defy explanation, 
we can reduce it by explaining it away. That is, 
one can run it back to physical and physiological 
causes; this done, its peculiar importance disap- 
pears with its independence. Summarily, it pos- 
sesses less reality than other parts of experience, 
because a derivant, not an original, self-witnessing 
activity. Recall, then, that even the dubious 
attitude of religion, now under consideration, never 
supports this topsy-turvy notion. Rightly so. For 
it requires no argument to confirm the self-evident 
proposition, that one portion of experience is no 
more, and no less, real than another. A man's 
moral career constitutes a fact to be reckoned with 
just as much as his chemical or historical knowledge. 
Chemists and historians must encounter problems 
of conduct like their fellow-men. All eiEfective 
components of experience, surely, are effective 
components. To enquire which are more real is to 
put a nonsensical query — one that corresponds to 
nothing of importance for an experient. Religion 



236 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

has never committed itself to absurdities of this sort 
in its commerce with morahty. In our complex 
existence, the reality of moral issues and their 
dilemmas counts equally with that of intellectual 
theories and their demands. Both occur, and here 
the matter ends, as concerns institution of odious 
comparisons. Accordingly, we infer that religion 
has not minimized morality, because it may be a 
by-product of superabundant bile or of superior 
pancreatic juice, but for a far different reason. 

Nor is this all by any means. Another, and 
more weighty consideration claims attention. As 
we have seen, 'exact' science and 'causal' history 
prefer specific conditions, which must regulate 
their material, if scientific and historical results are 
to accrue. If you recall them, as summarized in the 
last Lecture, you will observe at once that none 
apply within the religious life. For example, 
religion submits to no enumeration in time, or 
measurement in space; and it eludes retention in 
mathematical formulas. Similarly, it never mani- 
fests itself in a continuous, but always in a discon- 
tinuous, series. It were a work of supererogation 
to take the dimensions of faith in cubic centimetres, 
or to calculate the efficacy of prayer by the parallelo- 
gram of forces. Now, the moral life stands twin 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 237 

to religion here. Just as the parallelogram of 

forces may be employed with equal facility in 

astronomy and physics, so other standards of 
judgement — 

"How sad and bad and mad it was — 

But then, how it was sweet ! " — 

apply readily in the ethical and religious spheres 
alike. So, if nature be an elliptical name for one 
kind of order, conduct and belief proclaim another. 
The conventional phrase, ' physical science,' carries 
unequivocal signification. For the unprejudiced 
student of human experience in all its aspects, the 
phrase teleological science ought to be no whit less 
clear. Any investigation of moral and religious 
phenomena is teleological. The material under 
scrutiny compels this description. 

But the term ^teleology,' like others of its kind, 
has descended to us encompassed with naive associa- 
tions. We must reckon with contemporary usage, 
in the same way as we no longer attach the Greek 
sense to 'nature.' Therefore, to avoid miscon- 
ception, especially on the part of our naturalistic 
friends, who accord curious, if telltale, importance 
to Paley, we shall try to explain it. When one calls 
ethical and religious events teleological, one proceeds 
in the same way as the scientific man when he classes 



238 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

physiology, histology, or cytology under the concept 
* biological ' — neither more nor less. The impli- 
cation is this: They come full of material charac- 
terized throughout by fundamental differentiating 
qualities. No objection lies against the one word; 
similarly, no objection ought to lie against the 
other. Yet, misfortunately, teleology was "bom 
out of time," and preempted. It used to signify 
purpose injected from without, especially from above. 
A superhuman agent had insinuated a plan into the 
eye, say, just as the optician had constructed the 
telescope with a purpose in view. It were super- 
fluous to record that, in the present state of know- 
ledge, no circumspect thinker hints such reference, 
any more than he posits vitalism in the term ' biol- 
ogy.' He means simply that the group of phe- 
nomena evinces certain qualities by its very existence, 
and that, without them, it would not conform to 
its known nature. Further, a teleological event need 
not be less amenable to explanation by self-reference 
than a mechanical one. Indeed, from the stand- 
point of any enquiry within human competence, 
they occupy the same level in this respect. Man 
may search most various topics, he must state them 
all in terms of the human equation. 
As the issue bears directly upon our whole subject, 



4 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 239 

we stop to ask, What emerges from it ? In the first 
place, as noted in the last Lecture, the linkage be- 
tween the members of a mechanical series is invariable 
and identical, no matter what differences separate 
terms may disclose on the surface. We are aware 
that the vibrations of a tense string, and the dis- 
charges from a Leyden jar, propagate themselves 
in the same way. We are able even to devise 
experiments such that the proof receives ocular 
demonstration — nodes and antinodes can be seen 
in both cases. And we are sure that the same 
regular disturbances happen in an organ pipe. 
In ethics and religion this stable identity fails. 

"Outside should suffice for evidence: 
And whoso desires to penetrate 
Deeper, must dive by the spirit-sense — 
No optics like yours, at any rate ! " 

A unique activity, one incapable of prediction, dis- 
closes itself and, thereafter, the series undergoes 
transformation, thanks to its presence. The ref- 
erence runs forward, not backwards. In other 
words, we meet a situation such that causal de- 
pendence must be abandoned, if we would reckon 
with the manifest facts. Apply causality, if you 
will, but remember that, whatever its convenience, 
you have committed yourself to the tender mercies 



240 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of a misleading analogy. Take, for example, the 
process known as conversion, whether moral or 
religious. A man has passed years in solid con- 
tentment with the conventional standards of his 
profession, class, or nationality. At length he 
"comes to see things in a different light." His 
scale of basal values vanishes — rank, wealth, in- 
fluence, what not, ''appeal to him" no longer. 
He has become a devotee to scientific research, 
mayhap. His old friends cease to comprehend 
him, he behaves so queerly. In such a case, we 
have the outbiesik — never wbreak — of the new 
acti\dty typical of the teleological, and therefore 
discontinuous, series. No design by anticipation, 
special to just this end, is implied necessarily even 
from within; much less has aught been injected 
for the specific purpose from an external, super- 
natural source. But we do find a revolutionary 
qualitative difference — the very thing abhorrent 
to 'exact' science and 'causal' history. Were 
they to embrace these phenomena, they would com- 
mit suicide. Nevertheless, an angle of intellectual 
vision enjoys no patent to remove or obliterate 
facts. Adopt what standpoint you please, these 
affairs happen to be effective components of human 
experience. Put in cold words, pale shades of the 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 241 

process in concrete, this ''is a hard saying." Yet 
it embodies a group of normal events in the career 
of every man who has sojourned in the valley of 
veritable moral or religious trial. "Verily, verily, 
I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he 
cannot see the kingdom of God. . . . Marvel 
not that I said unto thee. Ye must be born again. 
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it Com- 
eth, and whither it goeth : so is every one that is 
born of the Spirit." ^ These verses record the 
whole story in familiar language. 

It remains to emphasize the fact that such incidents 
designate themselves no less distinctly than space 
and time variables. They possess their peculiar 
modes of existence and preservation. If the con- 
tinuous series be a quantitative sequence, the 
discontinuous exhibits a self-consistent unity, domi- 
nated by a forth-reaching ideal. And this ideal 
announces the free dictation of the end that renders 
the compacted events teleological. 

*'How inexhaustibly the spirit grows! 
One object, she seemed erewhile born to reach 
With her whole energies and die content, — 
So like a wall at the world's edge it stood, 

^ John iii. 3, 7, 8. 



242 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

With nought beyond to live for, — is that reached ? — 
Already are new undream'd energies 
Outgrowing under, and extending farther 
To a new object ; — there's another world ! " 

We are confronted here by the concerted surprises 
of a self-developing system, never by uniformities 
of external adjustment, traceable to the nexus of 
adjacent agencies. That is, we have a type of 
individuality maintained throughout a qualitative 
series. Apply mechanical judgements, if you like; 
they disclose nothing but paradox. You may ab- 
stract from the qualities, if you so choose, — to 
obtain 'causal' history, for instance. But you must 
bear in mind that you have chosen to eliminate, and 
that elimination produces no change in the original 
factual totality. You are not studying the given 
group in its proper reality; you are dealing with it 
for a purpose of your own, foreign to the data; 
you are not essaying an explanation of the case 
as presented. Accordingly, we seem entitled to 
conclude that, if we are to penetrate human history, 
to pierce beyond its outer framework to its actual 
process, we must class its phenomena with those 
of ethics and religion. At best, 'causal' history, 
the bootless search for origins that disturbs pious 
souls, cannot amount to more than a preparation — 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 243 

a necessary one, surely — for appreciation of the 
spiritual temperament in its concrete entirety. For 
the historical series, as human, cannot be less dis- 
continuous than that of ethics or religion. To state 
the naked case, cause functions subordinately in 
history, for there we must deal with a succession of 
events, so constituted empirically, that the modi- 
fications are historical only because motivated by 
fresh outbreaks of ideal activity. The occurrences 
that carry history belong invariably with conversion, 
and not with a lever, a spool, an arch, much less with 
the precession of the equinoxes. If you so desire, 
you may think of them as an ethical interplay; 
assuredly you can never dub them a mechanical 
arrangement, except by deliberate suppression of the 
very facts you have undertaken to grasp. No doubt, 
one may dismiss factors for a preliminary purpose. 
But persistence in this partiality reduces its spon- 
sor himself to the level of a preliminary phase. He 
serves himself a hewer of wood and drawer of water 
for the constructive genius whose insight aspires 
and joys, bleeds and burns with the palpitating 
past, regenerated into the present. 

Lastly, one other point of agreement between 
religion and morality may be mentioned in passing. 
The practical reference predominates strongly in 



244 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

both. They keep with the daily round of ordinary 
Hfe, rather than with abstract theories about Ufe or 
the physical universe. Man lives them out. 

Our analysis, then, reveals a substantial basis of 
unity between morality and religion. This renders 
the 'superior person' attitude of religion the more 
surprising — and interesting. So we revert to our 
former question. Has religion any justification? I 
think we cannot avoid an afi&rmative answer, and for 
a reason that roots in profound truth. Moral en- 
deavour ends ever with the adjournment of well- 
being. Thus, the position where we find ourselves 
now may be described as follows. Competent and 
successful within their respective ranges, quantitative 
science and positive history furnish no guidance when 
an account of the universalizing quality peculiar 
to human nature stands in need. The tendencies of 
contemporary culture prove that, when baulked in 
this way, men turn to the moral life, only to find, 
on the suggestion of religion, that it, too, suffers limi- 
tation. Perhaps it offers another example of the pre- 
established discord, though of a new and disconcert- 
ing kind. Possibly Bums, that master among those 
who search the heart, was right when he wrote, — 



Misled by fancy's meteor-ray, 
By passion driven; 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 245 

But yet the light that led astray 
Was light from heaven." 

Evidently, we must ask, How far is this true, and 
what message, if any, does it bear about reUgion 
itself? 

Although it may be theorized, the moral life is 
practical in the first instance. It manifests itself in 
overt action, the deeds of individuals. These, again, 
issue from highly complex antecedents, whose nature 
we indicate by calling them ' ethical.' This, in turn, 
carries a social reference. Nothing counts as ethical 
unless it involve an ethos — the internal spirit gener- 
ated by, and peculiar to, an intensive group. Sup- 
pose we take an American citizen, and proceed to 
strip him of his ethical possessions. Deprive him 
of all that he absorbed from his immediate family; 
of the influences that flowed in upon him from the 
environment of his boyhood and youth — north, 
south, east, or west; of all that he derived from his 
training in the common schools, and other educa- 
tional institutions ; of the precepts imposed upon him 
by, say, the protestantism of the sects that permeated 
his neighbourhood; of the associations formed mid- 
most the political and economic outlook of the 
United States; of the judgements he learned un- 
consciously from his daily reading in newspapers and 



246 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

popular magazines; of the perspective gained from 
the social ideas shared by him with his countrymen; 
of the movements special to the climate of opinion 
at the dawn of the twentieth century. Next, having 
subtracted all these, ask. What is left? The reply 
comes, swift and decisive. We not only do not know, 
but have no means of knowing. Apart from these 
reticular, excessively subtle, dispositions, nothing 
can be said of the man, or of any man. In other 
words, a mere naked individual never existed; 
and the more complex the civilization wherein a 
human being has partaken, the more profound this 
truth. The moral life persists only as at once the 
expression and the agent of transmission of such 
psychological unities. It might be described as a 
process of oscillation between a society and its 
members. Moreover, the personal career displays 
significance, gains enlargement, becomes valuable 
within the group, just in proportion as the uni- 
versal spirit overflows it. A man has morality, be- 
cause possessed by it in everything that lends him 
importance. "Hence," as Hegel wrote, *'the wisest 
men of old" — by whom he meant Plato and Aris- 
totle, our chief ethical authorities still — " have ad- 
judged that wisdom and virtue consist in living in 
conformity with the ethos of one's folk." Culture- 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 247 

history enforces this truth overwhelmingly. The 
paragons down the ages have been precisely those 
who lost themselves in their dominant social norms, 
or who attempted to emphasize relations slurred by 
the contemporary spirit. The conformists, acting 
with, the reformers, reacting upon, an organized 
ethical unity, together constitute the elect represent- 
atives of morality. Nor is the reason far to seek. 
In such circumstances, external rule gives place to 
inner principle. Thus inspired, the real types of the 
society illustrate moral activity in its most favourable 
light. For judgement can reach sharp decision in 
particular difficulties. Nay, the more important 
the choice, the less the hesitation to be encountered. 
Almost instantly, prompted by his cultural ethos, the 
* well-bred' person knows what to do. The 'ought' 
shines clear, and passes to 'is' forthwith. So, 
without the genial support of a diffused consciousness 
of kind, morality has usually withered or wavered. 
An epoch of transition and an era of simplicity, 
marked by 'originals,' seem equally unfavourable to 
ethical achievement. In the one, the social ideal is 
at odds with itself; in the other, individuals, free 
from direction, are apt to lapse into curiosities. 
The unity loses its balance in duality, or pluralism. 
"Social life is to personality what language is to 



248 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

thought." When it is said that a nation is merely 
an aggregate of individuals, "the fallacy lies in the 
implication that the individuals could be what they 
are, could have their moral and spiritual qualities 
independently of their existence as a nation." ^ 

Now, the inference, consequent upon these evident 
facts, offers a very relevant reason for the distaste 
of religion to the adoption of ' works ' as an ultimate 
test of worth. Let us put it in this way. Granted 
that the ethical problem can find solution only in 
practice, and granted that a social ethos gives the 
environment necessary to this practice, what follows ? 

First, something favourable to the ethical claim. 
The antithesis between egoistic ideal and altruistic 
realization tends to abate its acuteness — achieve- 
ment treads the heels of aspiration most closely — 
in the recompenses obtained from voluntary unity 
with the great aims of one's racial or national spirit. 
When the Roman stiffened his backbone and said, 
"Civis Romanus sum," he was the embodiment of 
what, in all fairness, we may call moral attainment. 
So is your modern American or Englishman or 
German, — he who feels he must be reckoned with 
on account of his people, and realizes his own 
responsibility in measure. When personal desire 

^ Prolegomena to Ethics, T. H. Green, p. 193; ist ed. 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 249 

finds itself completed in the best that bore it, then, 
and then alone, possibly, something in the nature 
of a moral heaven has been reached. For the 
solitary soul stands transfigured, and, having united 
with the many at the benign moment, serves itself 
'great' ethically. In their songs, when breath 
comes short, and tears start, men apostrophize no 
physical land, but a spiritual state. "My Country, 
'tis of Thee," "Die Wacht am Rhein," and the rest, 
reek with pride, but not pride that goes before a fall ; 
far rather, the pride that ensues upon real elevation. 
Detach the good from materialized associations, 
and you may say fervently, "Ubi bene, ibi patria." 
Here, if anywhere, " eternity is in love with the pro- 
ductions of time." Here, if anywhere, the incal- 
culable power, and the bewitching graciousness of 
the ethical appeal abash us into silence of consent 
by their glorious success. Here, if anywhere, we 
must find justification for the recurrent choice of 
goodness as the ultimate measure of a man. Glanc- 
ing back at her work, morahty might adopt, and 
flaunt, the Christian motto, "Die to live." For the 
genuine uplift of a folk has never been sought 
vainly in the ensamples of its own soul set before it by 
its sainted representatives. The revelation of the 
animating principle of a communal ideal, its concrete 



250 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

embodiment in a devoted, but sane, character, were, 
surely, something whereon anyone could dare take 
his stand "at that great day," expectant of the good 
servant's reward. Self has forgotten self and, 
through this very loss, has grown into the image of 
a near infinity. 

"The grosser parts fly off and leave the whole, 
As the dust leaves the disembodied soul ! " 

Accordingly, we think of our 'heroes' and 'represent- 
ative men,' — 

"The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns," 

as if they belonged to a region where Time, with her 
waters of Lethe, exerts no spell. Thus, the claim 
of the moral consciousness to erect a court of final 
judgement has always received popular suffrage, 
offered frequently a convenient, and even salutary, 
recourse. But, notwithstanding its splendid title to 
human allegiance, and the stimulating intensity of 
its attractions, the preestablished discord haunts it. 
Put it to the question, and you will discover that its 
last word cannot but be the adjournment of well- 
being. Of a truth, it transports one to " an exceed- 
ing high mountain," but only to point the higher, 
inaccessible, peak in the blue beyond. 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 2$ I 

For, second, its most adequate solutions, even at 
their radiant best, must keep the level of stages in 
the course of culture. While no prayer may be 
uplifted with more assurance, while none may be 
more thoroughly worth benison, than ''the work of 
our hands, establish Thou it," still the truth remains 
that the work is a work, and the establishment pos- 
sible only under certain limited conditions. "They 
shall perish, but thou shalt endure ; yea, all of them 
shall wax old like a garment ; as a vesture thou shalt 
change them, and they shall be changed." * So 
religion maintains. And why ? Look at our Ameri- 
can civilization, for example. To the ethos of Greece 
we owe the humane element — overlaid sadly — 
in our free spirit; to the ethos of Palestine, trans- 
mitted through Reformation Germany and Puritan 
England, our religious quality ; to the ethos of Rome, 
reborn in the genius of Britain, our common law; 
and other factors to I know not what forces of insti- 
tutionalism, consecrated in alien climes, and older 
epochs. Nevertheless, we contemn Greek and Latin 
for 'dead' languages, and grin over our 'progress' 
when we banish them from our schools ; we exclude 
the Bible, and prink ourselves in ' unsectarianism ' ; 
we shiver at the very name of Roman imperialism, 

^ Psalms cii. 26. 



252 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

especially if we are of those whom the breezes of the 
North Atlantic chill ; we flout the 'effete' civilization 
of England, particularly as incarnate in its governing 
class wherein, most characteristically for the modern 
world, the perfection of balance between individual 
aspiration and social achievement — the completest 
solution of the unlaid ethical problem — is to be seen. 
And for what reason, please you? Is it the most 
grotesque of provincial follies, or an unamiable foible 
of sheer ignorance? Not at all. The answer is. 
Because we cannot help ourselves — the morality 
of no one of these stages satisfies us} The root of 
our superciliousness strikes deep in our own hearts. 
From the height of our civilization — which is a 
height only as it is ours — we look down with pity 
upon all these, just as they severally scorned 'bar- 
barian,' 'heathen,' or 'outsider' in their flowering 
time. "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art 
found wanting." This writing on the wall demands 
no astrologer, Chaldaean, or soothsayer "to make 
known the interpretation thereof," much less "the 
excellent wisdom" of a Daniel come to judgement. 
The conclusion runs plain. Universalize any solu- 
tion morality can offer, and it becomes false forthwith, 
self-contradictory, or even a cumberer of the ground. 

* Cf. Joshua xxiii. 4-13. 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 253 

"The spacious days of great Elizabeth" could not 
have been spacious had they stood quod semper, quod 
ubique, et quod ah omnibus. The moral life may 
indeed win to a goal once in a day. No matter. 
For, by its inmost constitution, it effects so much in 
that day, and in that day alone. The very perfec- 
tion of the unity between ideal and aspiration serves 
but to originate a fresh opposition between the part 
that is and the all that ought to be. The English 
gentleman — Lord Cromer will pardon my imperti- 
nence in citing his representative record of tenacious 
rectitude — may very well be one of the finest ex- 
amples of ethical completion the world has known. 
Yet, callow though it may seem, we mock him, be- 
cause his 'ought' either fails utterly to appeal to us, 
or even assumes the ugly shape of an 'ought not.' 
In brief, the ethical consciousness must circle ah 
urbe in urbem ; it can never speak ad orbem. 

"Framed for the service of a free-bom will," 

the highest manifestation of moral well-being, and 
well-doing, no sooner walks the earth than adjourn- 
ment is taken, to tear it to pieces in committee, as it 
were. It W2is framed. Ethical realization wrought, 
as it must be, under stringent conditions, reveals itself 
as a kind of magnificent failure, when conditions 



254 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

alter never so little. Nay, the more its magnificence 
is lauded, the more its failure tends to incense those 
whom the magic circle excludes. Confined to a 
place or people, exuberant in a circumscribed period, 
the moth and rust of this world break through, and 
lo, it has gone to destruction. 

Here, then, we light upon the reason why religion 
has often cast suspicion upon 'works.' One good 
custom can corrupt the world, because morality is 
predestined to end in a series of compromises. Has 
the 'immoral' man been detected invariably in sot 
or sensualist, and in none other? By no means. 
As often he has horrified the "great and good ones 
of the earth" in the guise of a graceless iconoclast — 
pounding at the foundations of their consecrated 
usages. What else was Jesus himself ? Was he not 
" possessed of a devil " ? To 

''Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, 
And eternity in an hour," 

is not given to morality, because — 

"Pity would be no more 
If we did not make somebody poor, 
And Mercy no more could be 
If all were as happy as we. 

" And mutual fear brings Peace, 
Till the selfish loves increase; 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 255 

Then Cruelty knits a snare, 
And spreads his bait with care. 

" He sits down with holy fears, 
And waters the ground with tears; 
Then Humility takes its root 
Underneath his foot. 

" Soon spreads the dismal shade 
Of Mystery over his head, 
And the caterpillar and fly 
Feed on the Mystery. 

" And it bears the fruit of Deceit, 
Ruddy and sweet to eat. 
And the raven his nest has made 
In its thickest shade. 

" The gods of the earth and sea 
Sought through nature to find this tree, 
But their search was all in vain: 
There grows one in the human Brain." 

This is ''the human abstract," as a profound genius 
in mysticism saw so clearly. The 'ought to be,' 
the completer it 'is/ earns the frown of the 'ought 
not ' ; and so man passes from likeness to likeness of 
the good, particularizing from age to age, but uni- 
versalizing never. Well-being truly arrives, but only 
on agreement that it adjourn, the sooner the better, — 
to give place to well-being ! Small wonder that many 
seers and poets, astray in the ethical maze, should 



256 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

have likened human existence to a pragmatic cycle, 
arising, spreading, embracing, vanishing, merely to 
return and repeat itself in the same empty cere- 
monies, world without end. 

Time forbids me to dwell in detail upon the con- 
tradictions and compromises easily discoverable by 
any thoughtful person in the current standards of 
his own ethical environment. Suffice it to say that, 
thrust back where deepest satisfaction might be 
anticipated, mankind appeals to religion. The 
adjournment of well-being forces this alternative. 
We yearn for assurance, and are bidden — to keep 
up the struggle. Therefore we seek another coun- 
try, which is an heavenly, in the hope that the peace 
that passeth understanding may dispel uncertainty. 
Great as is the fallacy that seeks universal explana- 
tions from positive science and 'exact' history, the 
attempt to extract comfort from 'ethical culture,' 
or to escape religion by recourse to institutionalism, 
may be falser still. Science and history we know, 
but this assumes the dangerous guise of an enemy 
within the gates. So, in conclusion, we approach 
common representations of the religious conscious- 
ness, to see whether we shall fare any better at their 
hands. 

Taken on its practical side, especially, the moral 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 257 

life appears as a restless and, sometimes, confused 
state of effort. It demands a curious union of per- 
severance and concession. Even when it reaches 
comparative stability, in a distinctive culture, dis- 
quiet dances close attendance. In all likelihood, we 
must agree to accept these limitations as inevitable; 
circumstances compel us ; otherwise, morality would 
not exist. For, in practice, men are finite beings, 
subjects of a spatial and temporal order. They 
exhibit morality, because they cannot escape the fet- 
ters of their mortal lot. Yet, on the contrary, they 
could scarce maintain an endless struggle, sure of its 
futility, last and first. Despite appearances, they 
affirm, by their very alacrity, that their persistence 
through the strife witnesses to copartnership in a 
mission destined to final success. 

*'Grow old along with me! 
The best is yet to be. . . . 

" Rejoice we are allied 
To That which doth provide 
And not partake, effect and not receive! 
A spark disturbs our clod; 
Nearer we hold of God 
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe." 

The nature of the system — ' spiritual ' plus ' mate- 
rial ' — wherein man subserves his function as an 



258 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ethical being, thus comes in question. Practical 
though morality be, it is also systematic, and there- 
fore presupposes constitutive principles. It pro- 
ceeds on a basis little distinguishable from faith. 
The relevant motive-force, so to speak, involves 
decided convictions. As science postulates, without 
proof, that this frame of things is rational, and 
rational in such a way that the human intellect can 
grasp and use it, so morality, nothing loth, lays down 
initial propositions peculiar to its 'universe.' Stated 
briefly, even baldly, they are as follows : There would 
be no moral life unless man felt that, in sum, charac- 
ter attains enhanced power and fuller expression in 
ethical activity; and that, more rather than less, 
the consequences of endeavour represent victories 
whose benefits cannot be lost. Now this intimates 
that the practical career issues from an ideal insight. 
A new light suffuses the harsh disappointments of 
common day. We discover a time-process, fore- 
doomed to failure in every particular case. Yet we 
must face the correlative fact that this process justifies 
itself, and anticipates its own completion, by reference 
to a perfection seen with the eye of faith only ; even 
foolish mortals avoid a course where certain dis- 
aster is demonstrable beforehand. Were this ideal 
world to become real, however, morality would be 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 259 

abolished as ipso facto inconceivable or superfluous. 
Nevertheless, the existence of ethics betokens the 
conviction that this ideal possesses ultimate meaning. 
Hereupon morality has abdicated in favour of reli- 
gion. For religion pivots on the belief, not that these 
insights merely hint some vague eventuality, but that 
their object is the sole actual existence. The very 
imperfection of the moral life involves appeal to that 
supra-ethical reality which religion terms God. In 
short, another view of the entire system of experience 
looms in sight. The immemorial minor contradic- 
tions of diurnal affairs reveal a major contradiction 
between possibilities, known to be of one kind, and 
a present reality, conceived to be of totally different 
kind. For morality is a realization of human 
nature, just like any other — digestion, say. It 
offers a partial disclosure of a broken unity. Reli- 
gion, on the contrary, seeks imequivocal realization 
of the unity as a whole. But this seems entirely 
impracticable, because complete realization must 
include the ideal insights which, in turn, cannot 
find room within the realm of finite being, cribbed, 
cabined, and confined in a temporal series. 

This inexplicable disharmony shows us why 
even so great a religious genius as Augustine felt 
constrained to speak of life as "a monstrous para- 



26o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

dox." Take him from any side you please, man is 
himself a huge contradiction. "What a piece of 
work is a man ! How noble in reason ! how infinite 
in faculty ! in form and moving how express and 
admirable ! in action how like an angel ! in appre- 
hension how like a god ! the beauty of the world ! 
the paragon of animals ! And yet, to me, what is 
this quintessence of dust? man delights not me, 
no, nor woman neither." No prof o under difficulty 
assails reason, faith, and hope. Art represents 
Jesus with a crown of thorns, Nero with a chaplet 
of roses; she omits to add that the thorns blossom 
into roses, that the roses fade into thorns. Which 
picture holds truth? Or, are both true? Or, is 
there no truth, after all? We must not anticipate 
that an otiose, heritable conception of religion will 
avail much against problems like these. Nay, if 
we muster courage to play the game squarely, we 
must rather expect to discover that, sometimes, 
religion itself falls within the grasp of the wholesale 
contradiction. For, were it merely a transient from 
a distant clime, it would lack the touch of nature 
that makes the whole world kin. So, on any count, 
if it can effect aught to deliver, we are bound to view 
it as incidental to man's universe, and therefore as 
a subject of the preestablished discord. We dare 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 26 1 

not go forward in blindness to even the strangest 
turn of the wheel. If life be a paradox, and if religion 
be its inseparable accident, our holiest Edens cannot 
escape the trail of the serpent. In some aspects of 
it, religion, which ''builds a heaven in hell's despair," 
also "builds a hell in heaven's despite " ! 

The controversies that still surround the word 
afford abundant proof, not necessarily that its mean- 
ing is doubtful, but that it may be interpreted in va- 
rious, perhaps mutually exclusive, senses. Speaking 
generally, we know Religion as religions. While, 
condescending upon further detail, several conven- 
tions affect our apprehension of any one religion. 
The prism of experience splits the pure white light 
into many coloured rays. This weird contingency 
will claim our notice in what remains to-night. 

Customary associations control our uncritical 
acceptation of many abstract words. Linguistic 
denominations, like thousand-dollar bills, pass 
current at their face value — we do not think of the 
cents, much less of the reasons for the numerous, 
and shifting, exchange-worths represented. In 
short, the sign is presented or taken with an indis- 
tinct consciousness of its meaning, or without reflex- 
ion, or with positive error. Further, as civilization 
grows more complex, and portions of life gain rela- 



262 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

tive independence, this tendency to symbolize waxes 
mightily. If one were to pull a friend up short, 
with a request to define 'Government,' ' State,' ' Con- 
stitution,' 'Commerce,' 'Jurisdiction,' and so on, 
the exact constituents would not be forthcoming in 
every case. As for these, so for 'Religion,' it is 
easier to rest in a customary import, fixed by usage 
in a given society. Regarded thus, religion tends 
to symbolize one of several things as a rule. And, 
when you have heard the list, pray ask yourselves 
this question seriously : When these accompaniments 
have been stated, how many of your acquaintances 
and neighbours could you name who do not conceive 
religion to consist in one, or in a combination, of the 
views mentioned; and, if they be inadequate, what 
then? 

(i) Religion may be identified with the govern- 
ment, order, and practices of an institution — an 
ecclesiastical organization, say. All these, once 
more, vary from time to time, from place to place. 
Racial and cultural tendencies mould, if they do not 
control, specific manifestations of the kind. (2) It 
maybe identified with a system of doctrine. Here, 
again, racial and social tendencies intervene. One 
people may be so constituted psychologically, or its 
stock of knowledge may be so crude, that its creed 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 263 

counts no more than superstition with a folk in a 
different stage of development. Nay, within the 
same nation, the belief of one group may seem folly 
to another. (3) It may be identified with peculiar 
events alleged to have broken the normal current 
of history. Here, yet again, racial and social pre- 
dilections play an immense part. Jesus, a child of 
the Orient, was destined to conquer the West, but, 
equally, to miss formative influence in the East. 
Recall, too, that the religions which rule humanity 
to-day were all of Oriental origin. The Occident 
has evolved science, invented machinery, built battle- 
ships — and christened them in the name of the God 
of love by His consecrated ministers ; she has never 
created a great religion, unless, indeed, Christianity 
be credited to her. Accordingly, it requires little 
perspicacity to observe that, in all three cases 
equally, the compromises, even contradictions, 
characteristic of the moral consciousness, appear 
on the scene, with the usual consequences. The 
adjournment of well-being presents itself in new 
phases of its protean shapes. 

(i) It would be fantastic to assert that an insti- 
tution, developed in the course of history, could be 
universalized so as to provide a fundamental ex- 
planation of experience. All institutions exist to 



264 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

subserve practical ends and, on this account, they 
fail us when we seek consistent theory. To use 
the language of religion, no one would allege that 
the visible church and the kingdom of heaven are 
identical. The church appeared, and still con- 
tinues, as a means under the form of time; we are 
bound to conceive the kingdom of heaven as a per- 
fect community under the form of eternity. Thus 
the question arises. Can any religious organization 
escape the limitations that cling to all incidents in 
a temporal series? The attitude of anti-religious 
rationalists, and their reasons for it, prove the 
negative. Critics of the church fail to perceive that 
the dross of time and space defies the refiner's art; 
or they blink the situation wilfully. They return 
again and again with disagreeable charges. They 
draw lurid pictures of the apposition between pro- 
fession and practice; they wax mordant over the 
shallow compromises forced upon the church by 
the flesh and the world — by moral conventions, by 
the economic order. Doubtless, lively prejudice 
jaundices their vision frequently. Nevertheless, 
one may as well admit that they appeal to notorious 
facts. Still, their abuse derives its sting from the 
assumption that the church represents heaven upon 
earth, that it furnishes a complete epitome of the 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 265 

religious consciousness. If they were careful to 
recall that it is no more than instrumental to the 
major ends of man's being, their capital would be 
gone. As one type of human organization, it must 
submit to influences which no leap of imagination 
can transfer to an ideal community. Whatever 
man may become sub specie ceternitatiSy we have 
every reason to believe that he will not remain what 
he is now sub specie ecclesicE. In worship, for 
instance, we make common cause with some whose 
characters we despise ; and the same holds of other 
churchly activities — we may have to serve with 
them on a vestry. So far as our present partial in- 
sight reveals, we are perfectly certain that these 
relations would render heaven a mockery. Yet they 
bother us on every hand in our temporal expedients. 
We compromise with them, and contradict our high- 
est aspirations, because we are unable to help our- 
selves. Nor does the paradox finish here. The 
compromises and contradictions are tolerated for 
the sake of these very aspirations. They are tools, 
placed in our hands, willy-nilly, here and now. 

"Can wisdom be put in a silver rod, 
Or love in a golden bowl ? " v ' 

Assuredly not. Yet, straightway, we proceed to 
cramp them thus. In short, the visible church, as 



266 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

an apparition in time, bows its head in consent to the 
adjournment of well-being. No doubt, in separation 
from such societies, we may fall upon greater defect 
than when joined with them. But this lends no 
colour to the naive idea that the bare fact of asso- 
ciation embodies an adequate ideal. Briefly, the 
church, because ordered thus and so in the past 
and present, necessarily lags behind the very spiritual 
fulness that it exists to proclaim. To quote a com- 
monplace of sarcasm, we ought to remind ourselves 
constantly that, under temporal limits, the thirteenth 
vote represents the Holy Spirit only too often. Here 
Fate touches our workaday world with the grim 
humour of truth; and, within her own borders, we 
must abide her awful irony. A temporal organiza- 
tion sways from side to side; otherwise it would 
die, for the tortuous movement attests its vital 
quality. This same record of contradiction forms 
an indispensable stage in our 'progress' to anything 
ideal. No matter with what fine qualities we credit 
our instrument, especially when first made, sooner 
or later the inherent deceptions will come to light. 
This is the law of sin in our members. Indeed, one 
need not go further than the apostolic writings for 
lambent illustrations of the hapless truth. Vacu- 
ous fatuity and smug self-assurance beset religious 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 267 

institutionalism. They tell the price payable for 
ideal symbolization in objects that sink easily to the 
unideal. The poor are always with us ; but, worse 
luck, so is Seth Pecksniff. "'There is no deception, 
ladies and gentlemen, all is peace, a holy calm 
pervades me.' . . . His genius lay in ensnaring 
parents and guardians, and pocketing premiums. 
. . . 'We are all hypocrites. . . . The only dif- 
ference between you and the rest . . . is . . . that 
you never have a confederate or partner in your 
juggling; you would deceive everybody, even those 
who practise the same art; and have a way with 
you, as if you — he, he, he ! — as if you really be- 
lieved yourself. I'd lay a handsome wager now, 
if I laid wagers, which I don't and never did, that 
you keep up appearances by a tacit understanding, 
even before your own daughters here.'" Thus it 
must ever be with a temporal construction. Con- 
victed of shortcoming, it abases itself before the 
ideal, and, at the same moment, puffs itself up with 
false pride, flaunting the presumption that the ideal 
can find habitation nowhere else. Evidently, then, 
we must not seek for complete satisfaction of the 
religious consciousness in the visible church. A 
round of pietistic ceremonies, so called, is no more 
religious than a round of devotions to duty — the / . 

U 



268 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

i 
mother's, physician's, patriot's, scholar's. Only 

when mediated by that tension of the whole man 
which we term religion do these practices and self- 
sacrifices acquire religious import. Therefore, to 
mistake the church and things ecclesiastical for 
religion is no more than a concession to the world, 
likely to be fraught with disappointment, pain, or, 
perhaps, disaster, when real stress arrives. For the 
religious consciousness looks to the invisible things 
of a timeless perfection. Nay, would not the church 
become actively irreligious — has it not actually 
been so in times past — if it did not demand some- 
thing higher than itself? If we remember this, I 
think we shall escape imscathed from many diffi- 
culties that worry good souls to-day. 

(2) Similarly, even granted that religion requires 
an irreducible minimum of doctrine, it is plain that 
the system proceeds from the human mind. Con- 
sequently, doctrine occupies precisely the same 
position as any other pronouncement of reason. It 
is at bottom a series of hypotheses, evolved to ac- 
count for certain ebullitions of inner experience; it 
cannot pretend to complete truth. While it may 
be matter of immense practical importance that 
groups of men possess the conviction that some spir- 
itual asseverations are true, this means only that 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 269 

they find them helpful. In other words, the rela- 
tive character of knowledge always infects single 
propositions, and never so emphatically as when an 
attempt is made to render them the sole vehicles of 
truth. When a Christian cannot explain to you 
why doctrine presents God as triune, and flies to 
'mystery^ for refuge, what can you expect as to 
truth? When a pious soul is unable even to com- 
prehend why there cannot be any * relation * between 
an absolute God and a separate individual like 
himself, how can we anticipate that he knows the 
truth about an 'atonement'? In short, dogma is 
either too simple or too sophisticated to be capable 
of universal application. Too simple, because it 
neglects to fathom the presuppositions of the com- 
plexities it undertakes to define; too sophisticated, 
because it winks the eye at man's undoubted power 
to destroy or alter his own conclusions at any mo- 
ment. It is a mere piece of self-deception to sup- 
pose, for example, that we could not compose a more 
adequate creed to-day than in the fourth century. 
Yet we let the old statements stand, because, as I 
heard an ecclesiastic say once, "you can drive a 
coach and four through them." The point to be 
remembered is that you can perform this interesting 
feat upon any creed possible within the logical pro- 



270 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

cesses of reason. The secret ways of the religious 
consciousness defy all doctrinal anatomy. More- 
over, doctrinal conclusions, when they suffice mo- 
mentarily, are no more than reasons post factum. 
In a sense, every creed must be a forlorn hope. It 
rationalizes a condition which, in its very essence, 
eludes abstract reason. As a reflective, and second- 
ary arrangement, it betrays all the usual defects of 
the hypothesis-tribe. And the curious error, that a 
series of set propositions, relative to their day and 
generation, must contain the whole truth of religion, 
amounts simply to additional evidence of man's 
reluctance to face thoroughgoing thought about 
spiritual things. This blunder, be it said in pass- 
ing, has always been a characteristic of English- 
speaking protestantism. Our racial tendency to 
evade, or falsify, spiritual issues, is well understood 
by the continental peoples.^ 

^ The following is typical of the view held by the Latin peoples: 
"This race, bodily energetic and resolute like no other, is morally 
childish. Wonder and awe before questions unfathomable to the 
Englishman make him subservient, and establish the base of his 
mental discipline. In other races there is not to be found such 
respect for tradition, or worship of established forms, or admira- 
tion for great men, all the social traces that lessen the individual 
carat of genius, and so cement with solidity the whole mass of 
the greatness of the people. The English, who are penetrated 
by the Rationalistic civilization of the Continent, principally of 
German origin, confess that intellectual cowardice is the only 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 27 1 

A creed, then, is not religion. It is obviously a 
form of words, valid for those who fathered it, and 
intended by them to define some experiences be- 
lieved to be incidental to religion. It is doomed to 
pass or change, just like any other theory, — in 
science, for instance, — and this because its content 
partakes in the relativity of its age. So, once more, 
if we would bear these things in mind, many diffi- 
culties that distress devout souls to-day would van- 
ish into thin air. For a creed, like an ecclesiastical 
organization, is an instrument, and a most tempo- 
rary one at that. To put it in place of its creator, 
the religious consciousness, is to invite needless 
misunderstanding, perhaps eventual apostacy. For, 
in the nature of the case, dogmas constantly become 
irreconcilable with known facts. And to insist that 
the religious consciousness accept falsehood for its 
portion appears, to some at least, suspiciously akin 
to the sin against the Holy Spirit. 

kind of cowardice possible for Englishmen, but that lays hold of 
them to an excessive degree. ... It is even yet difi&cult for an 
unbeliever to pass as a gentleman, a good Englishman, and an 
honoured man. Hence comes a custom that, without being posi- 
tively a vice, is coated with hypocrisy — cant, the ritual of in- 
destructible conventionality." The England of To-day, Oliveira 
Martins, pp. 94-95. Some would maintain that, in the protes- 
tantism of the United States, these conditions are even more 
accentuated. 



272 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

(3) Everyone knows, in a general way, that Chris- 
tianity owed much to the religion of the Hebrews. 
Everyone knows also, I suppose, that Hebrew reli- 
gion adopted a peculiar attitude to history. It 
selected particular events, limited in time, and en- 
dowed them with timeless significance. In short, 
innocent of causal sequence, it elevated physical 
phenomena to the level of supernatural manifesta- 
tions. Or, more strictly, thanks to animism, his- 
torical sequents were transformed into dogmas — 
they "had some unique influence on the relation 
between God and man." ^ This tendency passed 
over to Christianity, as the creeds show plainly, 
and historical occurrences, coming to be represented 
as transactions between the divine Being and hu- 
manity, assumed the character of opera operata. 
The consequence was a most unhappy union between 
two series of experiences, each amenable to wholly 
different kinds of judgement. Impossible, some- 
times offensive or trivial, incidents, as history must 
count them, were thus forced upon Christianity as 
part of its permanent content. Accordingly, when 
scientific method annexed history, our religion could 
not escape assault, even impeachment. It had sunk 

* Some Dogmas of Religion, John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart, 
p. 2. 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 273 

unwittingly to the level of causal sequence, and had 
staked its veracity upon temporal and spatial cate- 
gories. Now, matters religious win to verification 
at first hand in the concrete consciousness of devout 
men. Yet here they were, jumbled with fiction-fact 
capable of estimate by none save trained specialists. 
Results guaranteed by the emotion, sentiment, and 
aspiration of living souls lost their force, because 
associated with antique stories at once dubious in 
themselves, and beyond evaluation by every average 
believer. Religious idealism, essentially metahis- 
torical and metaphysical in character, was changed, 
by a Circean spell, into a localized emeute, subject 
to disproof at any time by critical investigation, by 
the discovery of fresh documents, or by novel archae- 
ological finds. Besides, the farther history goes, the 
more definite her methods, the surer her results, the 
worse the plight of a priori dogmatism. "If it is 
the methodic cardinal proposition of the science of 
to-day that we have to explain every condition as the 
causally determined development out of a preced- 
ing one, this excludes on principle the appearance 
of any condition, event, action, or personality which 
is not explicable out of the preceding conditions 
and according to the laws of genesis in general." ^ 

* Evolution and Theology, O. Pfleiderer, p. 9. 

T 



274 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Moreover, as I have said already, this science has 
no more than reached lusty youth. "If thou hast 
run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, 
then how canst thou contend with horses ? and if in 
the land of peace, wherein thou trustedst, they 
wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in the swelling 
of Jordan?"^ The position is so intolerable that 
misapprehension must lurk somewhere. Does our 
Christianity depend ultimately upon a profession of 
belief in incidents, some known to be imaginary and 
absurd, others likely to be exploded any day, or does 
it not ? I fear we must reckon to learn that the for- 
mer alternative is nothing short of an insult to our 
religion. It cannot depend upon a dead past, or 
consist of 'stuff' meet to be tossed in a blanket by 
scientific criticism. And yet, this is what many good 
folk are taught to deem indispensable by ofhcial 
defenders of the faith. The irony of it is unspeak- 
able. Thus, if we could rid ourselves of this, as of 
the other secondary manifestations, we would escape 
much mental dispeace, much spiritual bewilder- 
ment, and, above all, we could conserve our religious 
strength for things which are of the last moment to 
our present personal lives. For, an event in history, 
subject to temporal bounds, must be delivered alto- 

^ Jeremiah xii. 5. 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 275 

gether from this imprisonment — must cease to be 
merely historical, in short — if it is to acquire con- 
structive significance for the religious consciousness. 
No one will fathom Christianity, for instance, till 
he realizes that the Gospels are not sober biogra- 
phies, but cataracts of faith. But, if we will confuse 
religion with births and deaths whose very attesta- 
tion is woefully fragmentary, and therefore obscure, 
we must not wince if historians maim, aye, destroy, 
our cherished faith. Nor can we be too clear that 
special pleading will avail nought to restore the 
shattered fragments. Once more the adjournment 
of well-being has overtaken us, and, if current signs 
intimate anything, in a form penetrating beyond all 
precedent. 

It must be insisted, however, that, although mo- 
rality, the church, creeds, and historical phenomena 
put us off when we seek ultimate satisfaction from 
them, they are not cast into the scrap-heap there- 
upon. Men would not tend to identify religion with 
an institution, a confession, or a beauteous char- 
acter, unless they had some natural justification. 
All these serve, or illustrate, religion in so far as they 
offer fit sphere for the play of consecrated senti- 
ment, touch it to fine issues, or conserve its hallowed 
associations. Indeed, such achievements of the 



276 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

human spirit exert legitimate influence, and are sur- 
charged with significance in degree only as emotion 
and aspiration pulsate through them. But to mistake 
them for a full, true, and particular translation of reli- 
gion, as it wells up from the unplumbed deeps of psy- 
chical peace-in-strife, is to invite heavy penalties. 
They face towards things seen and temporal ; it yearns 
towards the unseen and eternal. They localize — 
this is their distinctive function ; it tries to escape 
locality. They suffer constant change; it would 
partake of an existence that is the same yesterday, 
to-day, and for ever. Accordingly, the inevitable 
march of our own consciousness drives us from finite 
forms, useful, nay, necessary, in their order. From 
religions, and religious machinery, we are compelled 
to pass to Religion itself, in the hope that, by its 
strength, we may be delivered from the bitter dis- 
appointments wherewith the adjournment of well- 
being is fraught, thanks to the compromises and 
contradictions inherent in mundane affairs. We 
have followed the gleam from the first and, foiled, 
nowhere more than in its chosen representations, have 
missed the one thing needful. At all events, * Chris- 
tian truth' has eluded our search. And now it 
seems that if, haply, we are to establish any such 
vantage for experience, we must appeal to the reli- 



THE ADJOURNMENT OF WELL-BEING 277 

gious consciousness in its own proper nature. Pos- 
sibly, we shall have to abandon Christianity as a 
religion, and essay the formidable problem. Does 
religious truth find its most eminent expression 
through any convictions concerning God in man 
defensible before contemporary insight? Or, more 
directly. Has 'Christian truth' such faithfulness to 
human nature that it can be regarded, not as an inci- 
dent in, but as the ultimate expression of, Religion ? 



LECTURE VII 

THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 

When we take an inventory of experience, we are 
prone to ask, Where does it attain highest definition 
or assurance, where are its resuhs least broken 
by misgiving? And we answer, with no uncertain 
sound. In knowledge, of course. The temper of 
the present age, more, perhaps, than even that of 
the scBculum rationalisticum, the eighteenth century, 
harps on this view. As never before, men stand 
shoulder to shoulder, banded in a unitary effort to 
satisfy passion through knowledge, heedless of Faust's 
mischance. As never before, knowledge spells 
power, power to invade and exploit physical forces. 
Yet any investigator will tell you frankly — and 
the greater his eminence the more incisive his tone 
— that the conquests of settled knowledge form but 
a fragment, incalculably minute, wrested from the 
illimitable unknown. Mr. Edison has had the 
temerity to state the relation in terms of some in- 
conceivable numerical ratio. On the impressive 

278 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 279 

occasion of his professorial jubilee, surrounded by 
the world's leaders of science and learning, amid 
a hush that chastened all who had the good fortune 
to be present, the late Lord Kelvin said : — 

''One word characterizes the most strenuous of 
the efforts for the advancement of science that I 
have made perseveringly during fifty-five years; 
that word is Failure. I know no more of elec- 
tric and magnetic force, or of the relation between 
ether, electricity, and ponderable matter, or of phem- 
ical affinity, than I knew and tried to teach my 
students of natural philosophy fifty years ago in 
my first session as professor. Something of sadness 
must come of failure ; but in the pursuit of science, 
inborn necessity to make the effort brings with it 
much of the certaminis gaudia, and saves the natu- 
ralist from being wholly miserable, perhaps even 
allows him to be fairly happy in his daily work." ^ 

Here, observe. Lord Kelvin voiced what he knew, 
and did not venture upon any of his theological 
pronouncements, notorious, occasionally, for their 
wayward naivete. Of a truth, we are immersed 
literally in secrets that lie beyond ken, whose very 
existence we do not so much as suspect, in all prob- 
ability. At the same time, it would be foolish to 

^ Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the Uni- 
versity of Glasgow, i846-i8gg, pp. 70-71. (Glasgow, 1899.) 



28o MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

allege that the hidden processes of 'matter,' 'life,' 
or what not, constitute mysteries, or evidence a supra- 
rational dimension. The whole body of science 
warrants the inference that the cosmos cannot be 
ultra-rational and remain a cosmos. Unreason 
makes its bed in chaos. Our being may seem mys- 
terious, but only because, as the last expression of a 
developmental effluence, it betrays unforeseen quali- 
ties. If the universe contain anything mysterious, 
if it add to pure reason aught that betokens another 
and, as some would argue, a higher level, man must 
search his own heart for the clew to the unique riddle. 
The opaque depths of the natural order do indeed 
defy most cunning plummet ; but in the recesses of 
the human soul elements flourish for which * nature ' 
appears to present no unmistakable precedent. 
So, by one of those amazing paradoxes, apt to herald 
the near presence of truth, the penumbra of belief 
hints the existence, possibly the solution, of problems 
which, did they belong to a strange ' external ' world, 
would lie hidden irrevocably in the profundities of 
the intractable unknown. Thus, allowing for the 
imperfection of knowledge, we see, by a strange 
shift of outlook, that we may satisfy our passion 
through fulness of life, if not by fitting it to the 
Procrustes' frame of intellect. For, in his quest 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 28 1 

after an ultimate reality, man must either call a halt 
at immediate discretion, or carry appeal to his ex- 
perience as a whole. The unknown that immerses 
him is at once most baffling and most hopeful pre- 
cisely within the elastic circle of his self -mediating 
spirit. ''For what man knoweth the things of a 
man, save the spirit of man which is in him?"^ 
And I am not aware that this, the human oppor- 
tunity, manifests itself more characteristically than 
in religion, the activity that differentiates manhood 
most of all from the beasts that perish. Thus * ap- 
prehended,' as the apostle says wisely, one dismisses 
the unknown that still lurks in the womb of futurity, 
by transforming original emotions into vital con- 
victions. The surprising ability to universalize 
self, the individual, breaks forth and, idealism aid- 
ing, the believer descries truth in his acute sense of 
union with a perfect reality. In short, religion trans- 
figures beyond aught else, because it divines that 
presence of the whole which alone endows the part 
with value and intimation. 

If religion lack ability to penetrate the penumbra 
completely, at least it can diffuse a light wherein 
many dark places shine luminous. Moreover, 
the process neither originates nor proceeds by way 

^ I Corinthians ii. 11. 



282 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of ruthless dictation; it signifies for the simple 
reason that it is self-generated and self-sustained. 
In one angle of his experience, that is, man joins 
himself to ideal completion through the natural 
operation of his own spirit. Michael Angelo, who 
hid these things in his heart, so that he was impelled 
by them to his wonderful achievement, has recorded 
the movement with the profound insight born of 
personal sympathy. 

"Yes! Hope may with my strong desire keep pace, 
And I be undeluded, unbetrayed. 
For if of our affections none find grace 
In sight of Heaven, then wherefore hath God made 
The world which we inhabit? Better plea 
Love cannot have, than that in loving thee 
Glory to that eternal peace is paid, 
Who such divinity to thee imparts 
As hallows and makes pure all gentle hearts. 
His hope is treacherous only whose love dies 
With beauty which is varying every hour. 
But in chaste hearts, uninfluenced by the power 
Of outward change, there blooms a deathless flower 
That breathes on earth the air of paradise." 

Reduced to cold prose, this means that religion 
possesses momentum to pierce the penumbra in 
degree as it rounds itself out in imaginative aspira- 
tion. Its creative prescription provides a foretaste 
— our only one, as all saints would attest — of final 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF^ 283 

truth. If the harassed and bruised self, sensible 
of utter imperfection, can. cheat the dreary doom 
decreed by a blind Fate, it has but a single resource. 
It must master its helplessness by consecrating its 
career to something perfect which it perceives, as 
in a looking-glass, at the centre of its own being. 
Tied by the body to the ambiguous earth, it never- 
theless claims citizenship in heaven by virtue of 
undoubted power to soar thither. Its distinctive 
genius displays itself when, breaking through the 
penumbra of knowledge, it grasps reality, as it must 
account reality, in the penumbra of its own irradiat- 
ing harmony. Intensely sensible of failure, dejected 
by defect, it yet creates faith that at once justifies 
failure, and renders the necessity of defect tolerable. 
Accordingly, it is encompassed by no forbidding 
mist of things unknown, but by the stimulative air 
of a larger experience wherein knowledge plays a 
subordinate, if indispensable, part in the middle 
distance. Like clouds in an autumn twilight, intel- 
lectual skies are never the same for successive mo- 
ments ; but the reason for religion abides unaltered. 

"And at his side we urge, to-day, 
The immemorial quest, and old complaint." 

As in the elder days, when Springtime, and Sun, and 
Ptah, and Ashur, and Zeus were mighty to save, so 



284 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

now, the same fears compel the same hopes, the same 
perplexities imply the same remedies, — the same in- 
dividual proclaims, 'Lo, I am universal,' and so it is. 
Thousands in our own dull midst would realize 
this were they not stupefied by that ''torpor of as- 
surance" which curses organized Christianity to- 
day. From their eyes, too, the eternal soul gazes 
out, and in faithlessness to its latent capacities — 
because nothing will induce it to look in. Having 
eaten of the Dead Sea fruit served up by a utili- 
tarian education that has lost touch with relative 
values, imagination has fallen upon numbness, and 
spiritual originality has sunk low. Unaware of 
its own dynamic thrust, the modern soul knows no 
awe, and so its heart is seldom enlarged. In its 
petty irreverence it worships the barren individual, 
and the universalism of its suggestive penumbra is 
veiled in a fog of picayune methodism, fit habitat 
for prosaic citizens imtouched by passion, but no 
refuge for a living personality blessed with the liberty 
wherewith Christ and His prophetic forerunners 
have made men free. Assemble the master poets, 
painters, musicians, patriots, philosophers, lovers; 
put them to the question; ask them their receipt 
for power, for winsomeness, for revelation. You will 
find that, in all cases, it consisted in ability to raise 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 285 

self above self into unity with something worth 
permanent devotion. In a word, it was identical 
with religion, though less intense because its object 
centred, not in the perfection of reality, but in a 
symbol — beauty, colour, harmony, or other limited 
affair. Thus, if religion fail to touch us as they 
were touched, how can we sense its penumbra, how 
much more must we fall short of ability to pierce 
through to the truth it illustrates? For religion 
is nothing but the eternal witness within human 
experience to the present incarnation of God in the 
idealizing surge of man. Or, adopting Ruskin's 
great phrase, religion consists in ''veracity of vision.'* 
By it the individual has become the thing he predicts. 
A human being encounters, or, rather, contains truth 
here; for, from a finite sectary, quoting the words 
of a tortured book, reciting propositions mumbo- 
jumbo, or clutching desperately at the skirts of a 
temporal institution, he is transfigured into a cathol- 
icized member of the perfect reality immanent in 
his own soul. Untrammelled by the factual super- 
stitions of our wooden neology, veritable pagans 
enjoyed calm to feel this. 

^'It is not needful to lift up the hands to heaven, 
or to make petition to the temple-servants to permit 
us to come close to the ear of the image of God, as 



286 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

though he could better hear us there; God is nigh 
thee, God is with thee, God is in thee. Yes, I say 
again, a holy spirit dwells in us, to mark and observe 
our evil and our good ; as we treat him, so he treats 
us. No man is good without God's aid ; nor can, 
unhelped by Him, rise superior to Fate." ^ 

The penumbra of belief, then, as diffused by the 
inbred freedom of the spirit, the permanent guar- 
antee of religion, is riven by shafts of inward light 
that throw radiant beams upon truth and reality. 
Or, if you prefer the audacity, — and religion can 
never be audacious enough, — religion is the sole 
activity of human experience that renders truth and 
reality inevitable. But Religion, remember, not 
mental suppositions concerning it. For truth and 
reality are naught except as shot forth by man's 
psychical claim of right; they are always disem- 
bodied types of self -revelation. 

Notice, next, that religion tends to simplify life; 
it snatches one from turbulence, and leaves him alone 
with primeval fact. 

"All other life is living Death, 
A world where none but Phantoms dwell, 
A wind, a sound, a voice, a breath, 
A tinkling of a camel bell." 

^ Ep. xli, Seneca. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 287 

What may this import ? Some judgements, indispen- 
sable in a region of space and time, have been left 
behind ; need for them exists no more. For example, 
in dealing with ethical matters, it is impossible to 
avoid classifications that introduce approval and 
contempt. But the believer, though he contemn 
himself out and out, cannot forget the unity with 
perfection which is his already. A destiny so tre- 
mendous evaporates contempt, but not entirely. 
Condemnation preserves itself, but only in the mood 
that justifies such exclamations as, "What is man 
that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, 
that thou visitest him?"^ Approval, likewise, 
subserves no office here. The work is the Lord's, 
not man's. Accordingly, one ought not to anticipate 
that, within the penumbra of belief, logical proposi- 
tions, ranged stiff and severe, will rule the conclu- 
sions of faith. And, to this extent, the dimension of 
religion may be termed supra-rational — not supra- 
experiential. Let us listen to what the foremost 
among living philosophers has to say in elucidation 
of this point, so easily and so constantly misconceived. 
I cite Mr. Bradley, because his ruthless dialectic 
admits of no partiality to the religious consciousness. 
The object of religion — 

^ Psalms viii. 4. 



288 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

"is neither an abstract idea in the head, nor one 
particular thing or quahty, nor any collection of such 
things or qualities, nor any phrase which stands for 
one of them or a collection of them. In short, it is 
nothing finite. It cannot be a thing or person in 
the world ; it cannot exist in the world, as a part of 
it, or as this or that course of events in time ; it can- 
not be the 'All,' the sum of things or persons, — 
since, if one is not divine, no putting of ones together 
will beget divinity. All this it is not. Its positive 
character is that it is real ; and further, on examining 
what we find in the religious consciousness, we dis- 
cover that it is the ideal self considered as realized 
and real. The ideal self, which in morality is to 
be, is here the real ideal which truly is." ^ 

In a range where the strait canons of reason meet 
the deliquescent touch of affection, desire, and will, 
experience at length sights truth, appreciates reality. 
From these it fashions itself a new life. Conflict 
still persists, but its incidental' terms belong to a 
single whole, that forms the presupposition of their 
possibility. This whole, the transitive human spirit, 
possesses efficacy, accordingly, to direct its steps 
beyond strife to peace, beyond appearances to real- 
ity. The inner unity of a given selfhood exhibits its 
truth by degrees, mediated in a series of elements 

^ Ethical Studies, F. H, Bradley, pp. 284-285. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 289 

indissolubly one through their existence in and for 
this selfhood. In each of the parts the principle of 
the whole operates in its peculiar completeness. That 
is to say, religion is ultra-rational, because, as a 
distinctive process of experience in its entirety, it can- 
not be reduced to a form of knowledge. Or, more 
explicitly, it intimates, and with authority, the 
presence of a disposition native to idealism. As 
noetic self -righteousness would judge, it pleads 
guilty to mysticism. In this mysticism the penum- 
bral feature of belief comes to potent birth. Man 
dares to step beyond the bare affirmation that the 
object of his utmost desire is the reality, and seals 
his faith by the bold assertion that no other reality 
exists save in this. The personal self -identification 
provides the foundation whose builder and maker is 
God. Here, finally, all obstacles beaten down, our 
common humanity agrees that it has grasped the 
substance of things unseen. Backslide it may, but 
never to the old pit of finite satisfaction. Life has 
ceased to be an interminable experiment, — has 
defined itself as an imperative summons to imme- 
diate participation in the complete ideal. 

Belief sheds a penumbra where light and shade 
tend to mingle; so much may be taken as nearly 
axiomatic. It refers continually to a higher order, 
u 



290 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

unseen yet pervasive, the incontestable touchstone 
of a worth that dispels degradation from all pres- 
ent things, and promises their ultimate renovation. 
Prosaic rationalism, with its abstract articulations 
at second hand, has misprized this view, sometimes 
in cavalier, one might even say slatternly, style. 
If faith is to obtain a fair hearing, its mystical ref- 
erence must receive impartial treatment. It seeks 
no generosity, but it requires us to face its special 
synthesis of empirical facts. Misinterpretation en- 
sues unavoidably if an attempt be made to swallow 
religion at a gulp, as it were. Alternatives press 
for consideration when mysticism becomes an issue. 
For mysticism happens to be one thing as a wrought 
system, another, and widely different, as an access 
of ''man's delight in the work of God." We are 
compelled to distinguish, in short, between the 
fatuity of the philosophy and the inspiration of the 
mood. When the mystic thinker wings it into the 
empyrean, his religion is imperilled by very excess, 

" Pinnacled dim in the intense inane." 

But, on the contrary, his noble elevation partakes 
of the magic susceptibility inseparable from genuine 
religious conviction. 

In the first place, then, systematic mysticism 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 29I 

would lift men above this world, and abolish re- 
sponsibility of the spirit to the stern demands of 
the flesh, would rebel against their hateful oppres- 
sion. Overcome by sense of need for complete 
union with God, it would desert the physical uni- 
verse, to satisfy its aspiration through soporific 
musing upon an ineffable divinity. It would negate 
all relations of experience except those consecrated 
specifically by Absolute Being. Once more, in its 
intense anxiety to safeguard its pure Deity, it would 
extrude the 'One' from nature and, having de- 
personalized mankind, would reach reality in a 
'Beyond' where its possible degrees had all vanished. 
"The soul must sink in the Divine Darkness, into 
the secret place of the Divine Abyss," as Tauler 
held. "There is no safety save in the Abyss," as 
Brifonnet taught. "Adventitious reward may come 
in the consciousness of having conquered evil and 
done good; but true reward, essential reward, is 
only in the wild waste and deep abyss of inscrutable 
Deity, in the union of the soul with sheer imper- 
sonal Godhead," as Suso preached. And, when 
a believer seeks to know concerning this 'Abyss,' 
"he must be as one dead, he must see neither dis- 
tinction nor difference. For all that is in the God- 
head is absolutely one, and formless, and void, and 



292 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

interminable, and passive." So, brooding over 
the 'Abyss,' Master Eckhart, that mystic of mystics, 
affirmed: ''Thereof we cannot speak. It is the 
simplest essence of existence, it is unknown, and must 
ever be unknown. It is the simple darkness of 
the silent waste. It is the utmost term." What- 
ever may be said, by philosophical or theological 
criticism, for or against these gyrations of ecstatic 
piety, they are at plain odds with anything like our 
common Christianity, which, following the evangelist, 
insists upon the practical character of religion. "If 
any man will to do his will, he shall know the doctrine, 
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." ^ 
As a practical scheme of salvation, mysticism failed- 
He who must toil in order that those who depend 
upon him may live, is undoubtedly the subject of 
unrest, assuredly experiences the frequent pressure 
of defect, and realizes the need for its removal. 
But how can he devote himself to the contemplation 
requisite? Set, as he is, amid certain social con- 
ditions, how is he, while performing his duty tow- 
ards man, to work out his justification with God? 
Mysticism offers no answer, nay, dispels every hope 
of reply. For the worldly career, even in the ten- 
derest aspects and holiest duties, is a continual 

* John vii. 17. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 293 

defection from deity. Religion is identified with 
a specialized energy which beckons from obligations 
towards family and friends, towards country and 
humanity, back into the tiny circle of the single 
soul's desire to sink down into the abyss of infinite 
and indescribable non-existence. The blessing of 
an ideal capable of being realized even in the lowliest 
earthly tasks never so much as occurred to sys- 
tematic mysticism.* 

Yet, system aside, a mystic element surcharges 
the penumbra of belief always. But it is not to be 
interpreted as a logical construction, relapsing, like 
the philosophy, into predestined vacuity, but rather 
as the leit-motiv of the fiducial process. Faith 
protests against the rationalistic analysis that urges 
the ultimacy of mechanical judgements. To this ex- 
tent it welcomes one obvious tendency of mysticism. 
In so far as religion seeks, and finds, reality only 
in the significance conferred upon every separate 
thing by the presence of a universal being, it afiirms 
a position grateful to the mystic. As it adjudges 
experience, the final import of human life depends 
upon unity with God. For, otherwise, the individual 
fades to a meaningless spectre amid the recurrent 

^ Cf. Mediceval Mysticism, in my Aspects of Pessimism, pp. 
51-96. 



294 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

clash of its equally meaningless fellows. Remove 
the universal, and opposition rules everywhere; 
cosmic intimation, dependent upon knowable in- 
terrelation of particulars in a single whole, would 
thus become an ironical phrase. The penumbra 
of belief, accordingly, bears no witness to a God 
manifest in dreams, but does intimate an elemental 
spirit whose ceaseless operation conveys the sole 
guarantee that any finite object can affect the last 
reckoning. Evidently, the mysticism of religion 
repudiates such folly as the disappearance of each 
in the 'AIL' At the same time, the believer is 
moved by something akin to this idea when he denies 
that an earthly phenomenon possesses self-sustained 
stability, and afhrms that, as we ascend the scale 
of existence from nebula to man, God reveals him- 
self in a growing and more adequate revelation, 
whose intercourse furnishes whatever truth the 
cooperant stages evince. This apart, religion could 
not achieve its most tranquillizing consolation — 
the assurance that God confers inalienable reality 
upon men here and now. All representatives of 
religious genius have been forward to confirm 
this faith. And, I think, we must recognize their 
veracity to their own experience, just as we accept 
that of the naturalist or historian to his. Nay, 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 295 

the point can be pressed farther. We are bound 
to insist upon our responsibility to the conclusions 
of science and history, because they, too, partake 
in the quality of revelation. They grip mankind, 
and exercise sway, in proportion as they cease to 
traffic with pale abstractions, and concentrate upon 
affairs that form irreducible elements of events 
through which experients have actually passed. 
Suffused with the warm atmosphere of human 
devotion, they serve and ennoble the race, because 
they dignify aspects of life by justifying their reality 
in degree. The penumbra surrounds them after 
their kind, in that they 

"Have each his own peculiar faculty, 
Heaven's gift, a sense that fits them to perceive 
Objects unseen before." 

Similarly, religion certifies a new dimension. And, 
even though the mystic note ring louder here, we are 
committed to heed those whose ears hear it, just 
as much as we accept personal evidence for other 
exploits of experience. Indeed, contemporary 
thought confronts no more clamant problem than to 
state and enforce this mutual recognition among 
the various activities through which, as a matter 
of empirical record, men live concretely. If re- 



296 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

ligion be mystic beyond all others in its fetch of 
imaginative creation, still, like scientific and his- 
torical enquiry, it forms one expression, among 
many, of the selfsame consciousness. If it prize 
direct emotion more than the clarified intellectualism 
of the ages, the truth remains that, for us at least, 
such emotion would have been impossible, lacking 
the reason. Each must lay its gift on the altar of 
the other. Besides, the mystical element in the 
penumbra of belief, so characteristic of religion, is 
attested by its practical results. A poor starveling 
of humanity crawls forth to beg bread, and scrambles 
eagerly for crumbs from the board di the prophets 
— very minor prophets often. But, let the mystic 
touch transmute him — he developes a personality 
of his own at once, and yet in such detachment 
from self that his very presence induces others to 
walk the more excellent way. He attains sub- 
stantive selfhood by touching the springs of life in 
his neighbours; for he bears good news of a power 
that has rescued him from petty aims, and liberated 
in him that capacity to uplift which never appears 
till a man is recreated in the decisive choice of the 
eternal as against the temporal. I thank God I 
have been able to commune with this transfiguration 
in the persons of several who were my friends. For 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 297 

the experience proves, not merely that this uni- 
versalizing of the individual is religious mysticism, 
but — what is incalculably more important — that 
it is also soberest fact. In its practical effects it 
bars the way, demanding that we settle its account 
as adequately as the others. In short, human 
nature shows more things than are dreamt of in 
the circumspect deliverances of the understanding. 
It exhibits man as a perfectly new, but nevertheless 
perfectly normal, being. 'Natural supernaturalism,' 
the postulate and conclusion of religion, wells up 
midmost our common life in no less potent measure, 
to say the least, than abstract dynamics or 'causal' 
historicity. 

The Christian testifies that, in his experience, 
this dimension of the spiritual career reveals itself, 
not simply in a peculiar manner, but so as to manifest 
the complete truth of the relation between God and 
man in a normative fellowship. If his faith possess 
the root of the matter, he is prepared to affirm that, 
for him, Christ has become all that God need be for 
the total justification of his higher reality. Tre- 
mendous though the asseveration seem, it does not 
exceed the implications of the awful solemnities 
encircling our personal destiny. As far as earth 
fails from heaven, our souls, in their individual 



298 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

isolation, prove unequal to the 'God within/ and, 
in sheer helplessness, seek some One, "nobler and 
more splendid than is seen among men," ^ praying, 
"carry thou our yoke." ^ The dread position could 
be saved by no less bold adventure. For, "all 
human culture, natural as well as spiritual," giving 
the phrase its broadest sense, "hangs upon inequal- 
ity of souls." ^ Two profound questions therefore 
arise forthwith, and we must grapple with them 
as best we can. Their difficulty, if unparalleled, 
roots in the nature of the case. First, What is the 
Christian conviction? Second, What are we to 
think of the Christ on Whom, as Christians, we 
repose our unreserved confidence? 

(i) To prevent misunderstanding, it seems neces- 
sary to observe at the outset that Christian conviction 
must not be viewed as if it were a statement of fact 
set foursquare in a few abstract propositions. Faith 
preserves vitality as a process of functioning in 
personal experience throughout its self-sentencing 
career. If we would fathom it, we Christians are 
in duty bound to revert from propositions to per- 
sons. Approached thus, as a powerful influence 
operative in voluntary consciousness, Christian 

^ Seneca, E-p. cxv. ^ Cf. Virgil, Mn. i, 330. 

^ The Seat of Authority in Religion, James Martineau, p. 319. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 299 

conviction is normative primarily. How, then, are 
we to interpret this? First and foremost, as a 
definite attitude, yielding estimates that control 
practice distinctively. To render the meaning 
more definite, take science for example. It starts 
with presuppositions of its own. It adopts 'natural 
law' as a base-line, and proceeds to exclude con- 
trary phenomena. Intractable material is omitted. 
By this judicial elision a unified result ensues, cover- 
ing all amenable details without exception. So the 
numerous events that conform to the 'law' receive 
a new dignity; they rank as 'facts' now. Yet they 
are not honoured thus in their own right. They 
gain value literally, because capable of conjunction 
with other phenomena in the same sphere. The 
' law,' that is, underlies them and, by enforcement of 
homogeneit}^, elicits the import sought by the in- 
vestigator. There are no degrees; everything must 
descend to one level. Evidently, however, this 
method throws little light upon religious conviction. 
And the reason is not far to seek. In a scientific 
conspectus, all phenomena falling within the pur- 
view rank equal ; no event can enjoy more value than 
another. But this never applies in religion. Con- 
viction selects one factor deliberately, and enthrones 
it in experience. It becomes regulative, not simply 



300 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

in the possession of supreme value, but in that the 
value of other events is no more than derivative 
from the norm. As they rise to it, so they acquire 
reality. They ought to be as it is already. In other 
words, Christian conviction ejects an ideal, renders 
it prescriptive, and takes no pains to equate it with 
this or that transient episode. It may make light 
matters grave, and grave matters light. In short, 
a conviction is normative primarily, because it 
erects a canon of judgement, and condemns all al- 
leged facts till they change their nature as it directs. 
It does not confuse notoriety with greatness, unctu- 
ous profession with saintliness, popularity with 
permanent achievement. The breathless interest 
converges, not upon the discovery of uniformities, 
but upon discrimination between the standard of 
value characteristic of the conviction and the affairs 
it enables the believer to estimate as worthy or un- 
worthy. That is to say, a conviction rises to nor- 
mative sway when it predominates as a rule of life, 
or rather, as a measure of the relative importance 
of factors common to life. The judgement affects 
degrees of validity, is not concerned with descriptive 
accuracy. 

So, Christian conviction may be said to overturn 
many worldly estimates of ordinary things, for it 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 30I 

denies that the value, attributed from other points 
of view, represents the true value. As Christians, 
we will (or choose) to weigh things temporal accord- 
ing to the dictates of our belief. We transfigure 
often, abolish sometimes, sure always that our 
criterion embodies jubilant truth. Or, stating the 
case otherwise, a single positive ideal sets the per- 
spective, and casts its own lights and shadows into 
the farthest recesses. Possessed by it, we adjudge 
the reality of our nature to consist in a definite 
self-activity whereby we universalize manhood in 
persons puny otherwise. It contains the sole wisdom 
of life in the sense that it alone mediates the satis- 
faction demanded by men. Thus, for religion, but 
a single ' fact ' exists ; phenomena never rank equally 
on the same plane as with science. The terms of 
experience fill their places, no doubt, yet in such a 
way that existence itself can never be demonstrated 
fully even by summation of all its parts. A unity 
imderlies and alters them. The conviction accord- 
ingly transcends incidental circumstances and, as 
the dominant regulative command set over them, 
assigns them their values in measure. A normative 
ideal, therefore, offers scope for the complete and 
free development of the deepest insights. Its 
manifestation is constant and ubiquitous — the 



302 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump. The 
succession of events, described as 'history,' may 
subserve uses in illustrating its operation, but tells 
nothing about the problem of ultimate validity. 
Thus Christian conviction assumes most definite 
guise in the form of an immanent process of greater 
or lesser virtue for the upbuilding of religious man- 
liness. It might be defined as a determination of 
the life within a life. It persists as incarnate in men, 
they persist as they incarnate it. 

But, secondly, What is this norm? It originates 
in the great dualism of self-consciousness — the 
contrast, even conflict, between an inner and 
an outer world. Confronted with the difference, 
Christians affirm that, as between these two, human 
beings, thanks to their very constitution, must seek 
truth in the inward part. Here we encounter a 
permanent distinction between 'grasp' and 'reach,' 
between 'is' and 'will to be.' Religious aspiration 
prefigures a richer, purer, completer selfhood, and 
commands us to take service with it. Moreover, 
in proportion as we gain acute awareness of its 
internal presence, we increase that tension of the 
whole being which I have termed religion. De- 
votion to this upper dimension of reality motivates 
the spiritual life. Messages concerning its nature 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 303 

emerge from it in the revelations of religious genius. 
A central authority, superior to all contrasts, seizes 
upon us and, as its exponents, we acquire significance 
altogether beyond our circumscribed ego. Our 
final value inheres in, as well as issues from, this 
penumbral power, and so we pierce through the 
temporal order, as participants in a larger existence, 
"without father, without mother, without descent, 
having neither beginning of days, nor end of life." ^ 
The old dimensions of past and future, of breadth 
and thickness, lose importance. And with what a 
curious result ! Straightway we convict ourselves 
of sin. In his pulsating experience, the Christian 
is gripped by the swirl of a disturbance that may 
carry down no less than up. 

"Er braucht's allein 
Nur thierischer als jedes Thier zu seyn." 

But the frightful possibility of descent discloses also 
the power of the normative ideal to capture the 
whole person. And so the appeal to a redemptive 
presence, able to save to the uttermost, attains poig- 
nant fervour. Alienation from an unseen Reality 
more potent than self — awesome in its intimacy 
beyond the most terrifying forces of nature — 

^ Hebrews vii. 3. 



304 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

suggests, not merely its competence to mould every- 
thing to its own ends, but capacity to approach /row 
within y and in friendly mien. Personal communion 
with the ripest actuality in our own souls works de- 
liverance from their lowest impulses which, thus 
touched, display their dire ugliness. 

"Those who inflict must suffer, for they see 
The work of their own hearts, and that must be 
Our chastisement or recompense." 

A new judgement governs here, of such a kind that 
man comes to be the subject of a universalizing con- 
sciousness pervasive of every cranny in his character. 
Thus, he presents meaning just in proportion to his 
apprehension by it. Convinced of an implicit rest in 
God, the Christian proceeds to realize it explicitly 
in his daily walk. The homely becomes lovely, be- 
cause love wills perfection in it, a perfection drawn 
from the object of its devotion. In brief. Christian 
conviction declares God to be the normative content 
of human life. No doubt every ethical religion be- 
friends this conclusion in degree. But, so far as I 
am aware, Christianity alone has exercised boldness 
to assert that the ideal order finds its most complete 
manifestation in and through our race. Paradox of 
paradoxes though it be, Christians maintain stoutly 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 305 

the affirmative reply to the question put so pointedly, 
in another connexion, by one who is perhaps their 
greatest poet, — 

"can he use the same 
With straitened habits and with tastes starved small, 
And take at once to his impoverished brain 
The sudden element that changes all things, 
That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand, 
And puts the old cheap joy in the scorned dust?" ^ 

No doubt, sometimes, as the poet continues, — 

"All prudent counsel as to what befits 
The golden mean, is lost on such an one: 
The man's fantastic will is the man's law." 

Nevertheless, the conviction of "the sudden ele- 
ment," once felt, ranks foremost among ''the oracles 
of vital deity." Accordingly, Christian faith teaches 
that temporal personality takes its place, not as a 
lonely subject entertaining belief about God, but 
as the veritable exhibition of a present eternal in the 
only form capable of being grasped by man — his 
own. Universality, always potential in self-con- 
scious individuals, rises to manifestation in them when 
they enter spiritualized manhood. "Not my will 
but Thine be done;" when one can say and enact 
this, he is human indeed, but also more. He achieves 

^ Browning, in An Epistle, 1. 231 f. 
X 



3o6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

the same mind as the eternal, wills in godlike style. 
He confesses allegiance, not to an unknowable 
power without the order of experience, but to a sem- 
piternal presence of the Most High to his will, that 
enables him to bring forth the bread of life for the 
nourishment of others. The truth of this God within 
the soul can be substantiated only by those whom it 
has transfigured so that they enlighten the world. 
Christian conviction, then, affirms a normative 
''maximizing of life," possible solely through the 
rush of a mystic effusion that produces the transitive 
originality wherein one unfetters himself, and elevates 
his disposition beyond immediate or finite interests. 
But this implies, thirdly, that Christian con- 
viction estimates the norm of man's being in terms 
of eternity — an allegation so preposterous that to 
many objectors it is inconceivable, so they say. 
Let us look at it for a moment. The question would 
seem to be, Can any interpretation be put upon the 
presence of eternity, or an eternal element, to human 
experience such that even faith, let alone reason, may 
compass some account of it? Christian conviction 
appears to me to require nothing less. And, clearly 
enough, the answer depends upon the meaning one 
assigns to 'eternity.' If it be convertible with mere 
endlessness, as is commonly supposed, and urged even 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 307 

by Christians, the enquiry may be dismissed forthwith. 
If this embody what we Christians believe, we may 
as well halt at once — for it can import nothing. 
Obviously, even the more conventional doctrine of 
'immortality' does not insist upon simple length of 
days; it posits invariably a certain kind of being. 
I take it, therefore, that Christian conviction throws 
its stress, not upon a more or less babbling continu- 
ance, but upon a concrete existence expressible in 
experiential terms. And existence, once more, can 
scarcely be predicated of 'laws,' 'propositions,' 
'principles,' and so on. It is an indefinable condi- 
tion peculiar to things and persons in time. In 
time — "aye, there's the rub." Theologians have 
intensified the difficulty of the problem unduly in 
their anxiety to ' prove ' the reality of God's existence. 
They have set this in apposition to the existence of 
events in time, an unreal existence, they assert. We 
may dismiss this procedure as irrelevant to practical 
conviction. Every lover thrills to the reality of the 
object of his affection ; every artist to the reality of 
beauty, and so forth. Moreover, these occur in 
time. But this fails to negate eternal existence, 
because a fact in time, and eternal existence, though 
far from identical, may be related. In short, Chris- 
tianity countenances no such ascetic separations. 



3o8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

What Christians affirm is that, fundamentally, 
all existence, which enjoys symptomatic reality, 
must be eternal existence, or existence in and to an 
eternal. That is, it derives its right to weigh in the 
reckoning from an eternal factor functioning in it 
now; the timeless whole confers reality upon the 
temporal parts. This implies, once more, that what 
we call 'time' is an illusion of our individual, as 
distinct from our universal, nature. We obtain 
partial glimpses through sense, but fall short of 
ultimate existence as it is actually. Here we evi- 
dently come upon a figure of speech, a poetic state- 
ment ejected by imaginative creation, a 'way of 
putting it.' And in this Christian conviction cannot 
find rest; that is, its complete implication must 
travel farther. Personally, I feel sure that it does. 
It means to assert that the value of things, and most 
emphatically of men, determines itself by their in- 
difference to the transient details of experience, nega- 
tively, and positively, by their subordination to pur- 
poses believed to be divinely inspired. This inti- 
mates plainly that an adequate realization of the eter- 
nal ideal may eventuate within human character.^ 

^ A view closely akin to this has been elaborated by the most 
eminent theologian of our communion, Dr. W. P. Du Bose, in his 
The Gospel in the Gospels; cf. chaps, vi, vii, and viii. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 309 

The gospel of a divine humanity would constitute 
such an event. Moreover, if this consummation 
were to overtake our kind, it could never have 
begun, and can never end — for an eternal abides 
without these temporal distinctions. Besides its 
apparition would not cancel or remove mistaken 
judgements of value still operative with men as a 
result of their sensuous envelope. The mirage of 
the world would flourish still, full of loveliness to the 
eye, although the spirit knew it for a deceptive show. 
In short. Christian conviction points to an eternal 
existence consisting in a certain quality of being, 
without specific reference to time past or present, 
possibly without reference to time future. So far 
as a detached object succumbs to temporal bonds, it 
misses completion, and must be delivered somehow 
from this servitude, no matter how inevitable it may 
seem. Hence Christians represent their eternity as 
a way of life, consummated ''from before all worlds," 
but also as something to he consummated in them — 
because fallen individuals — in an eternity to come. 
Their regnant belief insists that the one, free from 
temporal illusion, must save from the temporal 
illusions which the other cannot escape. So it may 
be said in passing that, if Christianity offer a problem 
to philosophy, it is not the trumpery puzzle of end- 



3IO MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

lessness, but the extremely subtle question of the 
relation between imperfection in a time-series, and 
another kind of existence, to be extricated from this, 
in freedom from the defects that time prescribes. 
^ Our religion permeates us, accordingly, because it 
lends us faith to comprehend that we enjoy normative 
fellowship with the eternal even amid the appear- 
ances of time, and that, their vagaries overpassed, 
we shall become our true selves completely, because 
so unified with this eternal as to be incapable of 
estrangement from it. It teaches us to believe also 
that this intimate communion with the eternal has 
been realized within human experience, thanks to 
the spiritual clarity of one whose religious wisdom 
temporal disorders, at their crudest, could not ob- 
scure. Thus we feel settled in the faith that our lot 
holds no ultimate hope unless the episodes of time be 
rendered means of consecration to an eternal; and 
that this consecration is in Christ, may be in the 
spirit of any Christian convert, must so be for him in 
the state where he sees face to face. Now all this is 
quintessential idealism. You cannot * prove 'it by 
reference to external things, or by appeal to the literal 
record of a dead past. ''Thou, God, seest me!" 
No one can fathom this confession who lacks ac- 
quaintance with it from the inside. If one under- 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 31I 

stand it, he rests his case upon a vital experience of a 
power that changes will and emotion so that they 
win intellect over to a new range of values ; if not, 
he remains ignorant, as Christianity judges. For the 
seer, the eternal constitutes the timeless end of the 
personal ; and a person is personal because his seed 
from the eternal renders him such. As Carlyle 
says, ''the situation that has not its ideal was never 
yet occupied by man . . . the ideal is in thyself." 
Seize it, be seized of it, and the vision of your true 
worth becomes the normal fact of common day. 
Christendom has supplied many careers in point. 
This humiliation of God to their nature crowned 
them with the only immortality whereof man has 
assurance. 

Christian conviction, then, presents at least three 
elements. First, it is normative, in that it erects a 
standard of value whereby it rates the religious 
worth of every event incident to life. Secondly, this 
standard pivots upon an ideal present to the inner 
vision. Thirdly, this presence is conceived as the 
witness of our eternity, when, having freed ourselves, 
through its efhcacy, from the thrall of time and sense, 
we come to realize that only in the dimension of the 
spirit can men flourish so as to accomplish work 
destined to deathlessness. So far^I have tried to 



312 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

describe the indescribable. For Faith lives in 
radiant joy; set it to think, and it shivers in the 
unaccustomed atmosphere, with woe-begone gestures 
that seem eccentric or mayhap foolish. 

(2) Hence, when the Christian proceeds to confer 
substantial rather than verbal embodiment upon his 
faith, he turns forthwith to Christ. And the ques- 
tion arises. What are we to think of Christ, or 
rather. To what do we testify when we declare that, 
in Him, the fundamental elements material to this 
conviction reach supreme expression? 

You must understand, to begin with, that the 
profoundest thinkers and holiest saints of Christen- 
dom have recurred to this problem continually — 
to confess failure. It would be gross presumption 
on my part were I to suppose that, without a tithe of 
their ability, learning, and spiritual enrichment, I 
could succeed where they have found themselves 
baffled. The truth seems to be that the problem 
eludes operose solutions; anyway, it mocks pure 
intellect. I cannot attempt more than an indication 
of my manner of approach to it. Here, too, my 
narrow limits confine me to the barest suggestions. 
It may conduce to clearness if I cite three current 
views with w^hich I find myself unable to agree. 

Some devoted and devout students of Christianity, 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 313 

who form an influential school just now, teach that, 
after it had passed from Palestine into the Roman 
Empire, our religion was vitiated by adoption of 
ideas and tendencies peculiar to Greek thought. 
Accordingly, they have raised the cry, 'Back to 
history,' and have laboured to arrive at intimate 
relations with the Jesus of the Gospels by going 
behind these pagan accretions. Careful use of this 
method may result, assuredly, in a more definite, 
because less doctrinal, conception of our Lord's 
teaching. But, while it would be sheer ingratitude 
to lightlie these investigations and their important 
consequences, it is quite another affair to train with 
their representatives when they insist that in this 
manner, and in none other, can we answer the 
question, "What think ye of Christ?" Valuable 
as a historical discipline, the critico-psychological 
method seems to me to err in two particulars. On 
the one hand, its estimate of its own possibilities is 
too optimistic. As we have seen, we know little 
about the biography of the earthly Jesus, so little 
that we cannot hope to reach the eternal Christ even 
by most minute study of the New Testament accounts. 
Christianity persists in all that Christ continues to 
be, far rather than in what the man Jesus did during 
the recorded fragment of his temporal career. The 



314 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

fulness of the personality transcends our most ac- 
curate determinations of the teaching as reported by 
disciples. We may, indeed, recover something of the 
individual verisimilitude, here a little, there a little. 
Some portions of the story may turn out historical 
indisputably, others — probably a larger total — may 
have to be rejected as fictitious, and still others may 
prove an admixture of history and imagination, so 
closely interwoven that separation is impracticable 
now. But, in any case, the universality present to 
the living Person escapes this process; happily it 
neither needs, nor can submit to, any such recovery. 
It abides intrinsic to the mystic penumbra of Chris- 
tian faith. Criticism might very well regain for us 
some of the traits peculiar to Jesus as he walked in 
the flesh. But it does not thereby acquire exclusive 
patent to uncover the ideal Christ, Whose contingent 
symptoms these traits were. So, on the other hand, 
the critico-psychological method is too pessimistic 
in its estimate of the actualities — too barren, ana- 
lytic, oblivious of the constructive response induced 
in the regeneration of Christian men. One incident, 
more or less, would aid our vital Christianity scarce 
a whit. The doings of Jesus are wrapped in ob- 
scurity — and this is far better. His teaching we 
know in sufficient measure from the tenour of the 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 315 

documentary sources. But the metahistorical Per- 
son, as it governs down the ages, we can learn only 
from those whom He assimilated to himself. This 
should be obvious to anyone who has tried to com- 
mune with the early disciples. They at least sensed 
the universal in Christ by help of some other witness 
than companionship with the man of Nazareth. 
For my part, I am ready to accept this single fact 
as decisive against critical agnosticism. 

Once more, nothing could be less helpful for our 
problem than the widespread, semi-popular rational- 
ism that sees in the Life of Christianity no more than 
another Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, or Spinoza — a 
remarkable moralist. This construction 'explains* 
Christianity by the familiar expedient of omitting 
nigh all that originates the need for explanation. For 
Christianity consists, not in a school of thought, even 
an ethical school, but in Christ's power to reproduce 
Himself in any man. His way of life contains the 
condensed secret, and formulates the principle of 
solution. He guaranteed, and continues to guarantee, 
a relation of the individual disposition to God un- 
exampled elsewhere, and capable of 'proof only as 
brought to fresh illustration in Christian characters. 
Morality forms but one of many events contingent 
to it, and meets transfiguration like the rest. 



3l6 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Finally, if the rationalistic conception be a parody 
because extracted from a chip, the vague humani- 
tarian notion, still prevalent in some quarters, is 
just as lopsided. A generalized sentimentalism, 
wherever human interests are concerned, falls short 
sadly of Christ's plangent idealism. The yearning for 
man's temporal satisfaction, daily comfort or decency, 
and natural pleasure, does indeed accompany the gen- 
uine Christian attitude. But it issues from something 
far other — from a conviction concerning man's rela- 
tion to God. This saves it from flabby benevolence, 
from green-sick gush, from the cant of vapid enthu- 
siasm. These methods of approach, then, in their fe- 
cund kinds, seem to me failures, because they are too 
relative, too doctrinaire as of an age, too forgetful of the 
transitive, reproductive universalism that is Christ. 

If so, what are we to say? My own feeling — for 
it is a matter of emotion and wish rather than of 
intellect — may be hinted if I confess that, when 
faith flags, and doubts invest, I turn, not to the 
Synoptists, winsome though they be, not to Paul, 
although his matchless courage and magnificent 
self-devotion overwhelm one with shame, but to 
what I have called the pearl of great price in the 
New Testament — the Fourth Gospel.^ The eternal 

^ See above, p. 151. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 317 

Christ is true man — man reborn after the spirit, "by 
a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for 
us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh," as the 
writer of Hebrews saw.* For us, in these latter days, 
at all events, the essential qualitative truth receives 
sufficient emphasis in the memorable admonition to 
Thomas: "Because thou hast seen me, thou hast 
believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and 
yet have believed."^ What do we believe, then? 
Let Paul answer for us, and in his Johannine mood. 

"The righteousness which is of faith speaketh on 
this wise. Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend 
into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from 
above :) Or, Who shall descend into the deep ? (that 
is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But 
what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy 
mouth, and in thy heart : that is, the word of faith, 
which we preach." ^ 

Be assured, Christ cannot conserve His reality for 
us, and continue no more than Jesus of Nazareth, 
crucified, dead, buried. He persists as the active 
presence that operates within, soul to soul, or^we 
have lost Him beyond hope of recovery. For the 
Christian, human life on this infinitesimal planet is 
either a quantitative phantasmagoria, or is capable 

^ X. 20. ^ John XX. 29. ^ Romans x. 6-8. 



3l8 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of being charged with awful responsibility as the 
fullest theophany patent in time, destined, moreover, 
to perfect completion through a divine humanity 
realizing itself untrammelled in the kingdom of God. 
And this divine humanity is achieved without flaw, 
once for all, by and through Christ. 

The curious fancy has overtaken me often that, if 
we compare the Synoptists with John, they seem to 
be predecessors of Christ, he the veritable follower. 
The last verse of the Fourth Gospel indicates why. 
"And there are also many other things which Jesus 
did, the which, if they should be written every one, 
I suppose that even the world itself could not contain 
the books that should be written." The factual 
element in the earlier writers smacks of struggle, bows 
to local pressure, may be overset even ; the personal 
touch of the later disciple flashes forth iridescent 
with flaming truth. John in foreign Ephesus, or his 
near kith, interprets the Person of the Master as 
universal life ; he makes it the prius of the possibilities 
of a history that would spell cold prose otherwise. 
He attests it as precedent, primary, and reduces the 
biographical record to illustrative rank. His ap- 
proach, that is, issues from the enthusiasm of trans- 
muted individual experience. Or, the actual pres- 
ence of God — the eternal — in Christ conditions 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 319 

the effort to comprehend the man Jesus. A meta- 
historical person, uplifted and ubiquitous, creates 
the importance attributable to a single Jew in time. 
The author of the Fourth Gospel has been seized 
of the conviction that Christ cannot be understood 
by any appeal to variable circumstances, and that 
these must be interpreted by reference to the im- 
pulsive power of the eternal existence shining through 
them. Completion of humanity prevails with him, 
not as a philosophical idea, not as a particular event 
accidental to a place or period, but as the internal 
organization of constructive efflorescence, always real 
and always regenerating. ''What things soever" 
the Father "doeth, these the Son also doeth in like 
manner y ^ Here we have the Johannine approach; 
the believer adds to the record, now stereotyped and 
therefore chilly, his warmth of passionate devotion, 
and passes thereby from a historical one among others 
to a metahistorical, renewing force, incarnate finally 
in manhood. He assimilates himself to Christ, and 
in this assimilation the witness of the eternal, ener- 
gizing personality becomes self-evident. In a word, 
Christ achieves place as divine through the conse- 
cration of His followers. The inexhaustible fresh- 
ness it is that supplements the partial tale of the life 

^ John V. 19, R.V. 



320 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

on earth, and acknowledges therein a life from 
heaven. 

This universality of Christ, in the concrete faith of 
His disciples who had not seen, solves the apparently 
insoluble problem of a God-man walking in Galilee 
of Judea. The agnosticism which alleges that the 
Prologue of the Fourth Gospel ''is not the key to 
its comprehension," ^ contrives precisely to invert 
the situation. One suspects it for a mere foible of 
scholastic thinking. By his cosmic presence, in the 
exhibition of a redemptive and ubiquitous life in 
human kind, Jesus served himself Christ; but this, 
the ordained end, could not become apparent till 
believers, having perceived the Christ in and for 
themselves, developed ability to recognize what a 
universal and eternal existence might purport. 
This, the completion of Jesus' work, necessarily 
eventuated ere his divinity, as man's Christ, could 
enter the human spirit in triumphant victory. The 
validity of Christ, that is, broke forth from the ' One 
God' creative of history, not from any annalistic 
statement within history. Christ appeared in final 
reality, not during the period when "hitherto ye 
have asked nothing in my name," but when the 

^ A. Harnack, in d. Ztschr.f. Theol. u. Kirche, vol. ii, pp. 189 f. 
Cf. History of Dogma, vol. i, chap, ii, sects. 2r^' 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 32 1 

saying was proven, "Ask, and ye shall receive, that 
your joy may be full." ^ The Master evinced 
'heavenly' (that is, universal or eternal) value, 
through the mystic facts evidential of His career 
after death in the souls of His servants. Here, at 
length, man discovered Him as the God within the 
soul, mighty to save. Thus, and thus only, it 
became apparent that no antithesis exists be- 
tween God and man, but a perfect indwelling of 
the eternal in the temporal. Thus, too, Jesus 
passed over into the Son of God — the Christ with 
us. For, as Keim says, with penetrating insight, 
"He has filled up the gulf between the One and 
the Many which Moses dug and no prophet bridged 
over." ^ 

Unquestionably, this estimate of all that Christ 
is approves itself primarily to Christian piety. But 
it was never meant to accomplish aught else, hence 
the secret of missionary zeal. We are not saved by 
an opus operatum, or by a speculative genius, or by 
a hero, or by a demigod, but by the reproduction in 
us, according to our own original effort, of the spirit- 
ual manhood which Christ conveyed. Not that He 
needs anything at our unclean hands; nevertheless, 
our communion offers the only present certification 

^ John xvi. 24. ^ Jesus of Nazara, vol. vi, p. 429. 

Y 



322 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

of His transcendent potency. It seals the eternal in 
Him. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God 
and that the spirit of God dwelleth in you?" ^ 
We do know, and this knowledge it is that approves 
the largest indwelling of the Spirit of God in the 
deepest convictions of Christians. Only to children 
of the flesh can incarnation intimate anything. With 
them it happens to be a normal event; in Christ 
they discern the full-throated message for which this 
event came into being, without which it goes to pieces 
as the most intolerable error perpetrated by heedless 
cosmic Fate. And so, for the Christian, through his 
transformed personal experience, Christ is "alive 
for evermore" ^ as the explicit manifestation of the 
normative presence of the divine nature — a nature 
implicit in man, if man is to be reckoned as a being 
who possesses any differentiating mark of his very 
own. 

And the attestation? Any believer can furnish 
it. If Jeremiah could declare, "His word was in 
mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and 
I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay," ^ 
how much more he who has made common cause 
with a 'Comrade-God,' a familiar among the sons of 
men. A human God was our imperative necessity. 

* I Corinthians iii. i6. ^ Revelation i. i8. ^ xx. 9. 



THE PENUMBRA OF BELIEF 323 

From the plenitude of His nature, "touched in 

all things like as we are," our emptiness could 

be filled. Mystic though the penumbra of this 

faith be, it intimates the basal truth concerning 

our divided life. ''For this cause came I unto this 

hour." ' 

^ John xii. 27. 



LECTURE VIII 

THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 

Readers of the Old Testament will recall that the 
Chronicler relates a curious story, not told elsewhere, 
about a wonderful victory gained by Jehoshaphat, 
son of Asa, over the ^' children of Ammon, Moab, and 
mount Seir," although, at first, the king had been 
"dismayed by reason of this great multitude." ^ 
Success won, the Judeans ''assembled themselves in 
the valley of Berachah: for there they blessed the 
Lord." Like them^ we have found few substantial 
reasons to fear the dangers that seem to compass 
religion in these days. But, like them too, we must 
remember that the valley is no mountain top where 
we may dwell safely in serene disregard of the en- 
circling world. Christianity, as Religion, may indeed 
bless. Nevertheless, we are fated to fare forth to 
our daily labours, and to meet many perplexities on 
their own chosen ground. Our faith will not avail 
us much if we fail to employ it actively, and this 

^ Cf. 2 Chronicles xx. 1-30. 
324 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 325 

without taking unfair advantage of bare conventions. 
Culture presses forward, developing new situations, 
raising fresh issues, and we hinder rather than help 
Christianity by reluctance to meet the onset of varia- 
tion. Thus, in order to round out our enquiry, we 
had better confront several obvious difficulties. They 
are of a more or less practical kind, and often give 
the enemy occasion to scoff. Belief or no belief, 
we work midmost modern life and, despite wishes, 
are unable to comport ourselves as if we were con- 
temporaries of Paul, of Augustine, of Baxter, of 
Pearson, of Butler, of Keble, or even of Brooks. We 
need imagination to recognize that we stand account- 
able as much for our good as for our bad deeds. 
In some ways, moreover, the stress of the good may 
prove no less severe than that of the evil. For light 
and shade blend here below. As Nietzsche said, 
" unf athomably shrewd is the stupidity of the good :" 
"myself I sacrifice unto my love, and my neighbour 
as myself." 

First, then, if, as we have tried to see, Christianity 
represent the true central stream of religion, if, as 
some claim, it be the ' absolute ' religion, Why has it 
failed, and failed conspicuously, to master the human 
race? The deepest shadows of the valley envelope 
us when we face this sullen fact. But there it stands, 



326 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

leering at our bright hopes, giving the lie to our fond 
assurances. Of course, figures are deceptive, and fur- 
nish no more than an approximation. Agreed that 
the various faiths of the world count 1,540,000,00 ad- 
herents, Christianity in its many branches numbers 
but a fraction more than thirty-three per cent — 
520,000,000. Even more startling is the situation 
in the British Empire, where Christianity occupies 
the third place. Of King Edward's subjects, 
206,000,000 profess Hinduism, 75,000,000 Moham- 
medanism, 60,000,000 Christianity.^ In other words, 
our religion has made little impression upon Asia, 
the mother of immemorial civilizations, the birth- 
place of the ethnic faiths regnant now, the home 
of 900,000,000 men. Moreover, to-day Islam rules 
the land which Jesus illuminated, the scenes of 
Paul's principal labours, the age-old empire where 
the greatest thinkers of early Christianity held sway, 
the places where Augustine met his epoch-making 
experiences, and its political metropolis was the 
capital of the first Christian emperor. It attaches 
Asia at the rate of from 25,000 to 50,000 converts 
per year, — perhaps many more, as some authorities 

^ Cf. Comparative Religion, its Genesis and Growth, Louis 
Henry Jordan, p. 573 f. I happen to know from an independent 
source that Mr. Jordan has taken the greatest pains to verify his 
figures. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 327 

declare. Further, in Africa, it has seized upon the 
north, upon the vast districts of the Upper Niger 
and Upper Senegal, has spread south far down the 
east coast, and gains steadily along the Atlantic 
fringe; so much so, that one-half of the continent is 
Moslem; two-thirds feel Mohammedan influences; 
thirty-six per cent of the population profess Islam; 
while, Copts and Abyssinians aside, Christianity 
must rest content with less than three per cent. 
Nor does the account close here. One would antici- 
pate great success for Christianity in Hindustan, 
where the pax hritannica affords protection and 
favourable auspices. Nevertheless, the British have 
not divined the inner character of their Indian sub- 
jects, especially on the religious side, and, as a con- 
sequence, Christianity has secured no grip, save in 
the Madras province of Tinnevelli, where 150,000 of 
the 2,900,000 Christians resident in India are to be 
found.^ It suffices nothing to cast all this in the 
teeth of missionaries as a class. For, on the whole, 

^ An apparent exception to this may be found in Malabar, 
where more than one-fifth (571,000) of Indian native Christians 
are to be found. The legend is that Christianity was introduced 
here by St. Thomas. However this may be, it is undoubtedly 
ancient (sixth century, perhaps), and stands aside from modern 
missionary activity. Cf. The Indian Christians of St. Thomas, 
W. J. Richards. 



328 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

they are staunch to their profession, work devotedly, 
often amid most discouraging difficulties and, in 
India at least, have won respect, if not complete 
confidence, from every class. Black sheep appear 
amongst them, as is inevitable. But their very 
rarity excites vivid attention, and thus acquires 
importance out of proportion to ratio. 

Anyone who has considered the subject without 
prejudice, and reviewed the astonishing figures, will 
tell you to seek the causes deeper. It is no part of 
my intention to discuss them now, for I am leading 
up to a larger question, as you will see directly. But 
I riiay indicate one or two points. 

For instance, why should a religion of Asiatic 
origin miss appeal to Asiatics so thoroughly ? ^ The 
result is the more remarkable when one acknow- 
ledges that, beyond all men, Asiatics delight in 
religion, and evince extraordinary capacity for con- 
centration upon things of the spirit. Well, every 
religion must express itself in what may be termed a 
polity. And, if Christianity drew its original impulse 
from Asia, its polity is Occidental through and 
through. As a consequence, it carries this polity 
with it in the persons of its representatives wherev^i^' 

^ Cf. The Naturalization of Christianity in the Far East, 
Edward C. Moore, Harvard Journal of Theology, vol. i, no. 3. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 329 

it penetrates. One laughs aloud as he considers the 
feelings of a high-caste Hindu Pundit, who is asked 
to walk lock-step with a respectable bourgeois Eng- 
lishman, or a conventional middle-class American, in 
order that he may participate fully in the blessing of 
a higher religion ! The Hindu deems our civilization 
folly; nevertheless, we would have him 'civilized' 
after our fashion as a necessary accompaniment of 
christianization. We try to teach him the English 
language, to introduce him to English literature, 
to inoculate him with ' Anglo-Saxon ' manners, to fill 
his head with Occidental science, — in short, we 
would have him turn his back upon his own ancient 
culture, so that he might hold up his head within 
the fair precincts of our faith. Needless to say, 
fatuity could go no farther. The riddle reads plain 
enough, — if there is to be Asiatic Christianity, it 
must come through Asiatics, Arab Christianity 
through Arabs, Negro Christianity through Negroes. 
We shall have to drop the futile task of cutting alien 
civilizations to our pattern as the prelude to religious 
conversion, and proceed to devise plans for their 
transformation from within by their own folk. And 
why? Take the first case. 

An impassable barrier still separates Oriental 
from Occidental culture. Despite all the benefits — 



330 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

and any just man knows them for legion — she has 
conferred upon India, Britain has failed to lay vital 
grasp upon any considerable part of the population. 
In passing, the same may be said of Russia in the 
East. And the middle wall of partition is as much 
religious as aught else. Or, rather, it takes the shape 
of religion wrought into a complex social system. 
We concentrate interest upon objects in space and 
time, Asiatics upon timeless ideas ; our life is individ- 
ualized and secular, theirs socialized and theosophical. 
The master ideals of the two culture-spheres will not 
mix. Little wonder, then, that the Asiatic, proud 
of his immeasurable past, dislikes Christianity, the 
religion of a 'superior' people, who would disrupt 
his social system, and who will not, indeed cannot, 
intermarry with him or otherwise share life on terms 
of intimate equality. Our religion would render 
him a waif in his own land, an outcast from his kin, 
would leave him naked and raw amid the only civili- 
zation he knows or can appreciate.^ Need we be 
surprised, then, that, if dissatisfied with obsolescent 
Hinduism, shaken by our science, he joins himself to 
Islam, where he finds practical equality, and not a 
beauteous, verbal theory? Every thoughtful Anglo- 
Indian is aware that the Asiatic would be rid of 

^ Cf. Matthew xxiii. 15. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 33 1 

British rule at once, not because it is bad, — its 
justice Indians admit freely (and resent !), — but 
because he would, above all things, return to his 
old paths, would be himself, in short, and cease to 
pose at the behest of disagreeable intruders. Nay, 
likely enough, the dumb millions have their reasons. 
The complete sterility of English education in India 
were enough in itself. The system has produced 
no native of first-class ability, and is responsible, 
possibly, for the significant decline of Indian origi- 
nality in architecture, literature, art, politics, as also 
for the slow dissolution of the principal religion. 
To have relegated the Pundit to the background, 
and suckled the Baboo, is, indeed, a glorious achieve- 
ment, calculated to arouse pride ! Did not Rome 
succeed amazingly in a parallel way? Many other 
things might be said, but we cannot stay. Briefly, 
then, Christianity must express itself afresh, from 
within the Asiatic and African civilizations, ere it 
can hope to remove the huge blot upon its missionary 
success. We should learn to attribute past failure 
not to our religion, but to ourselves, its half-hearted 
and, sometimes, thick-headed upholders. 

Now this raises a far wider issue. We share the 
accomplished blessing, but we are condemned to 
continue in the valley of life. And the question 



332 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

arises, Is Christianity, as we know it, to remain an 
abiding thing, finished and adequate, or is it possible 
that man must still anticipate momentous changes 
within it? This problem relates primarily to what 
I have called polity, and is therefore of practical 
interest mainly. Accordingly, it involves another, 
and theoretical, enquiry that may be put as follows : 
Is the * absolute^ element in Christianity fixed and 
static ? Or, on the contrary, is it in process of such 
transformation that it may be overpassed some day ? 
In the language of religion. Can the kingdom of God 
attain more concrete expression on earth? These 
issues may seem unusual, perhaps impertinent. 
Yet we cannot shake them off under temporal con- 
ditions. What I wish to urge is that, if Christianity 
lag, we its children must bear the blame, unless we 
muster courage to encounter even the most discon- 
certing phenomena. ''The good are indeed saviours 
of society, but only as they find its sins in them- 
selves." ^ Who supposes that even the best have 
exhausted the unsearchable riches of Christ? 

It were superfluous to prove that religion and polity 
cannot be separated. The one manifests itself in 
numerous activities that would be impossible apart 
from the other. Accordingly, as they interpenetrate 

^ Philosophy of History, Alfred H. Lloyd, p. 228. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 333 

inevitably, they interact constantly, and contribute 
in common to many movements. On the other 
hand, the reason for this interdependence exhibits 
every sign of extreme subtlety — it has been stated 
in most various and conflicting forms. I am in- 
clined to believe that, in the present state of socio- 
logical knowledge, a general, though not necessarily 
vague, description must suffice. A religion and 
(if you please) a secular polity agree in one conspic- 
uous quality. They evince a formative tendency 
that no contingent events serve to explain. The 
controlling force in both attaches to a metahistorical 
element. It attests the operation of a power that 
cannot be referred to single individuals as their 
attribute. It is impossible to track the state to 
contingent events, or to abstract statements of belief, 
any more than the church. And, all things con- 
sidered, it seems possible that we know this power 
best in group-life, even if, as also seems possible, 
any particular group illustrates aspects of the whole, 
and perhaps hides the complete verity. For example, 
in the eighteenth century, many rationalistic critics 
of religion were pleased to identify it with priest- 
craft. It was an evil in their eyes, but not unmixed. 
Bad as the ally of superstition against enlightenment, 
it might be good, notwithstanding, as ''a bridle in 



334 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

the mouth of the sensual mob." Jejune as these 
notions appear now, they held a modicum of truth. 
If, in the life of a polity, some men — the ministers of 
religion, say — be set apart as the exclusive repre- 
sentatives of a definite activity, then you must an- 
ticipate that, from time to time, this very selection 
will react upon the organization in general. Em- 
phatically, the interests of the official class may 
diverge seriously from those of the community, and 
to such a degree as to arouse fierce antagonism. 
The story of bureaucracy needs no comment. The 
phrases, 'high-priests of science,' 'magnates of 
finance,' 'mandarins of education,' and the like, 
serve to hint that the same process operates in other 
directions as well. Now this implies that, in the 
differentiations necessary yet accidental to polity, 
specialists are prone to forget their own origin. 
Their inmost life flows from "the general." So, 
if they seclude themselves or magnify their office, 
they imperil their dearest hopes. The moment any 
group stereotypes itself, and would limit the expres- 
sion of the metahistorical principle ascetically to a 
disrupted part, an artificial condition eventuates, 
and conflict becomes inevitable. Needless to say, 
this very thing has overtaken Christianity more 
than once in the Western world, and always with 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 335 

the same result. The sequel — self-confidence — 
has drawn opposition, and has been forced to abate 
its pretensions. One sees similar phenomena in other 
grooves — in science, for instance. Compare its 
present tone with that rampant a short generation 
ago; the raucous note is raised no more. And the 
moral would appear to be that religion, like every- 
thing else, must retain intimate relations with polity 
as a whole; socialization provides an essential 
seed-plot. It ought to incline away from itself, 
as it were, that it may enjoy, not rude health of outer 
estate, but real influence through the entire ethos. 
If it retire to its sacred precincts, unavoidably its 
idealization of the community will fall short of a 
thorough mission. Nay, things being what they 
are, the presence of a complex polity to religion acts 
as a defence against the conceits of archaism. The 
polity might well suffer from some species of Chris- 
tianity; but our hearts' desire is that it succeed by 
the power of religious truth. Its very defects should 
offer security for the future of a militant faith. 

Besides, such is human nature that a polity forms 
an indispensable instrument. For, as the philoso- 
pher would put it, religion needs opposition in order 
to pass through self-alienation, the painful prelude 
to fitness for a fuller revelation. In our universe, 



336 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

absence of growth, of power to expand, is synony- 
mous with death. Religion enjoys no exemption 
from this rule. If it would progress, in the sense of 
maintaining positive dominion, it must keep with 
society. In addition, the more it pervades communal 
affairs, the more it finds ready intercourse with the 
ideals and activities symptomatic of other spheres; 
that is, the more ubiquitously it witnesses the pres- 
ence of the metahistorical power which never be- 
longs to single persons or to sectarian groups. It 
is enhanced, because multiplied with other factors, 
not only incidental, but needful, to its saving career. 
Yet at a price. The polity develops many features 
that may retard, even when they do not vitiate, the 
religion. Hence a constant opposition marks the 
neighbourly existence of both. Neither can dis- 
pense with the other, and yet each tends to subserve 
its own distinctive aim. In short, while a polity is 
essential to Christianity, Christianity is not essential 
to this or that polity; so the ideals of the polity and 
the religion may diverge, even although alliance be 
necessary to the socialized ends of both. Thus it 
may be perfectly true that Christianity suits Occiden- 
tal civilization, Hinduism Oriental culture, Moham- 
medanism Negro society, and, at the same time, it 
may be perfectly true that the ^ absoluteness' of Chris- 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 337 

tianity remains una£fected. In any event, no one 
can deny that many characteristics of Western polity 
do antagonize our religion. And if, as some allege, 
the latter stands on trial to-day, it is no less plain 
that the former has reached the assize also. The 
one cannot be weighed without the other. The vast 
differentiations of Occidental life have resulted in 
partial seclusion of religion. As a result, the two 
must be brought into intimate cooperation once 
more, if further advance is to ensue. The growth 
of insanity and suicide, the awful ravages of alcohol- 
ism, the grave failure of the most energetic classes 
to reproduce themselves in due proportion, the 
diffused individualism and materialism, together 
with similar phenomena, indicate some practices 
within the polity discrepant from the ideals of the 
religion. So, too, many professing Christians are 
satisfied to govern themselves by ' legal ' conscience. 
They apply one standard in business, another in 
the charmed circle of ' the four hundred,' another in 
political ' deals,' and guide the great body of their 
ordinary practice thus. Yet they know a different 
rule in the church — alas, too often theoretically. 
Differentiation within the polity renders them tol- 
erant of smooth blackguards, of agreeable gamblers, 
of mannerly sensualists, of public trustees whose 



338 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

official career is a lie, the blacker for copious white- 
wash. Still, on the other hand, without the polity the 
religion can effect nothing. The Gospel is to the 
world surely. We need to translate ' Christian truth ' 
into the language and deeds of daily life, in order that 
its salving influence may pervade the community. 
A religion effective from Monday to Saturday will 
speedily expose the hoUowness of a religion paraded 
on Sunday. Christianity faces a new task in relation 
to contemporary civilization, and needs must adapt 
itself to an unprecedented combination of circum- 
stances. To renew the polity, it cannot avoid self- 
renewal in some shape. It is no static system, but 
an active process capable of endless recuperation. 
Either this or its efficacy belongs already with the 
past — not done away, indeed, but laid up in a 
napkin, like a venerated fetich, to work miracles 
on call. 

Now, if our religion must express itself in a polity, 
how can it retain its ' absoluteness ' ? On one con- 
dition only: given a functional activity necessary 
to the super individual existence of the polity, 'and 
performed by religion. Doubtless, the subject is 
obscure and difficult; in addition, students have 
not probed it to the bottom so far. Accordingly, 
I confine myself to a few hints. As we have 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 339 

attempted to see, Christianity stresses a universal 
factor in individual men. But, even as subjects of 
this universalism, they live in human societies which, 
again, bestow on them a secondary universalism 
variable from organization to organization. As a 
rule this political enlargement takes the shape of 
national or imperial pride. Here religion and 
polity touch. The former insists upon what I shall 
call the ' person.' No one rises to the distinctive 
level of personality till he betrays the presence of 
some power greater than self. His consciousness 
gives access to the play of a transitive force that at 
once enlarges and dissolves the separate, self-regard- 
ing ego. Thus man releases a loftier experience, 
that betokens motivation by an operative spirit 
'absent in his unregenerate days. Or, to state the 
case in terms redolent of piety : ''Happy is he whom 
truth by itself doth teach, not by figures and words 
that pass away, but as it is in itself." Taught thus, 
a human life receives consecration as a new outlet 
for the manifestation of spiritual efficacy. It ceases 
to be a means, and ranks as an end — for the sake 
of the vital message it conveys. Accordingly, reli- 
gion would conserve the individual on account of 
the superindividual in him. It would save him, 
because he is a ' person ' or may come to be one. 



340 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

Polity, on the other hand, would conserve the indi- 
vidual in relation to sociomorphism. It would value 
him as a means to the preservation of its character- 
istics which, after their kind, are also greater than 
himself. Religion struggles for the ' person,' polity 
requires the individual to struggle for it. In the one 
case, man reigns as the agent of universalism, in the 
other, he serves as its patient. Notice, both con- 
centrate upon his psychical enlargement, but reli- 
gion unconditionally, polity conditionally. Religion 
treats the ' person ' as a perfectible whole, polity would 
use the socialized individual as a relative part. 

The two agree, then, in a common tendency to 
universalize individuals. Further, religion cannot 
dissociate itself from the circumstances characteris- 
tic of a polity. So it would seem that, if Christianity 
is to retain its 'absoluteness,' it must perform the func- 
tion of transforming the ' absoluteness ' of the polity 
in such a way as to show that it also subserves the 
^person' as an end. In other words, it has to operate 
so as to indicate that, just as the individual may be 
rendered a vehicle of the universal, and be thus multi- 
plied into personality, the polity, even in its super- 
individualism, may be widened in like manner. 
Religion can safeguard its peculiar universalism 
only if it energize as a vital power permeating the 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 34I 

polity throughout, and effecting tangible results 
which, otherwise, the polity could not achieve of itself. 
The metahistorical unity, common to religion and to 
polity, attains clear manifestation in this way, and 
in no other. For instance, as a matter of record, 
Christianity produced modern civilization in the 
Occident. It functioned so that the polity felt the 
presence of a spiritual momentum such as could be 
generated only within an integrated society. Yet 
the society was elevated above its kind by partici- 
pation in the religious idealism. For a polity is of 
one blood with its diverse members in this respect, — 
it can support its temporary ills, frequent disappoint- 
ments, and constant strains, if it sense responsibility 
to something immeasurably more august than itself. 
Religion secures compliance with this condition. The 
polity changes chameleon-like. But religion stands 
firm witness to the metahistorical unity, no matter 
how it may alter the aeonic means whereby acute 
need for God is brought home to the 'secular' 
group. Thus, in so far as any polity holds power 
to perdure through time and chance, it has already 
become a religious organization. And, in relation 
to it, the function of religion is precisely to arouse 
consciousness of this truth, and to keep it lively. 
Need I add that, for our own civilization at least. 



342 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

we have no choice ; the purpose myst be effected by 
Christianity, if at all. Hence its ' absoluteness.' 
Moreover, as it fills its function, it awakens our 
responsibility to other civilizations, by their very 
nature petitioners for the same universalism. 

But, some one will say, ' the facts of political and 
social life seem to prove that a polity is quite sec- 
ular, that, on the slightest pretext, it apostatizes 
easily, nay, completely. Christian peoples, several 
of them, worship force openly. Indeed, they hold 
might for right, although they may hesitate to make 
the ugly confession with their lips. Again, many of 
the ' directing classes,' mainstays of the church, 
serve Mammon obsequiously. In a word, thanks to 
your polity, Christianity seems to have gone to the 
wall.' True, but not true enough. We must pause 
to ask a question. What do these vexatious develop- 
ments betoken? No more than this: the polity, 
thanks to the severe pressure that overtakes all such 
arrangements from time to time, has sacrificed its 
best ideals for the sake of immediate satisfaction, 
or momentary advantage. Those who worship 
Might shall die by Might — or reform, lest this evil 
befall them. Those who worship Mammon shall 
succumb to his canker, or repudiate him, if they 
would escape. Signs of these very consequences 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 343 

already so multiply and alarm that we are prone to 
declare, 'Occidental civilization is at the cross-roads.' 
Now, if religion function as I have attempted to 
show, it alone holds virtue to restore that essence 
of the larger life which the polity has bartered, 
misled by false values. We must always remember 
that Might and Mammon are worshipped just in 
so far as they can be spiritualized. Man never 
bows the knee to them, but to the permanent expan- 
sion of self — the benison of superindividuality — 
which, as he fondly supposes, they are able to bestow. 
The devil makes an invariable .appeal, he lacks 
originality entirely. It is ever, "All these things 
will I give thee, — the kingdoms of the world, and 
the glory of them." Not the relative values of 
Might and Mammon, but the absolute value, in 
relation to self, of the things they offer, elicits human 
allegiance. Accordingly, the clamant business of 
Christianity becomes quite apparent. It must 
unveil anew, even to seventy times seven, those 
higher reaches of enlargement, those sources of 
transfiguration from individual to 'person,' whence 
alone permanent elevation issues. Granted that, 
in the nature of the case, polity strays into devious 
paths, follows divisive courses, the more need for 
Christianity to divine its real end, and this under the 



344 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

darkest clouds that shadow any moment. Even in 
its Caesarism and Mammonism, the poh'ty worships 
— it turns to an 'oversoul' in some sort, and detects 
vaguely its birth from 'another world.' Imperfect 
absolutism of this kind can be exorcised only through 
the true absolutism of religion. Christianity must 
open the eyes of 'commercialism,' and its numerous 
kin, so that they may perceive the actual source of 
the stability that guarantees them their temporary 
triumphs. 

The power of expansion characteristic of modern 
society comes from man's ability to universalize 
self. To reveal this in its ultimate nature is the 
splendid task of religion, ever old, yet ever new. For, 
as the ends whereto polity makes individuals the 
means differ from generation to generation, so too 
Christianity must needs originate fresh methods to 
enforce the right of the individual to end as a ' person.' 
It will preach subordination of group-ideals to ideal 
manhood, it will set forth the still larger life, by 
showing that adequate personalism depends upon 
intimate communion, in complete sincerity of purpose, 
with the Spirit of Perfection whence group-ideals 
also obtain any significance they possess. Amid 
the distractions of time and sense, many miss the 
truth that heroism lies, not in worldly might, or in 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 345 

crowding goods, but in the stern battle with self-will, 
won only when self has disappeared, to return with 
its solemn experiences worked out "as ever under 
the great Taskmaster's eye." If, as Fontenelle 
said, "our fathers made the mistake of hoarding up 
errors for our benefit," the reason is evident. They 
forgot the true universal, in devotion to particular and 
momentary aims. And we are equally liable to the 
same mischance, unless Christianity clear our vision 
so that it may penetrate to the essential being of our 
kind. Its plain mission, then, — and this within 
the polity, — is to suffuse the secular ' absolute ' with 
the ennobling glow of the eternal, that all dross may 
be refined away. In other words, the polity — ours, 
or the Asiatics', or what not — affords another, and 
greater, opportunity to the religion. The momentous 
issues with which Christianity still teems relate, not 
merely to the conversion of individuals, but to the 
regeneration of cultures. These things seen and 
temporal, just because they fill so huge a stage, call 
for more adequate 'absolutism' than we have 
realized hitherto. So be we are faithful to the 
gigantic trust, Christ begins His larger mission — 
the polity of to-day exacts more than ever from Him. 
To conquer, ' Christian truth ' must be proven truth 
by us more thoroughly than by our predecessors of 



346 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

olden time. For, as a polity grows more complex, 
it tends to disperse the solidarity essential to its 
well-being, in a mass of competing group or 
individual interests. This happens to be the grave 
disease of Western civilization now. On Christianity 
devolves the duty of restoring the broken unity, by 
its regenerating universalism. Only thus will the 
polity develop those superindividual sanctions, 
incarnate by transitive personalities serving the 
ideal, Ihat give it internal worth sufficient to lead its 
members to go to the death for it, if need be, and this 
gladly. Now, as of yore, if ''there be fifty righteous 
within the city," or " peradventure ten," the Lord 
will ''spare the place." For by these independent 
instruments, the operation of the eternal, salving 
ideal is assured, despite any depth of iniquity. No 
polity ever lasted in which some did not live to God ; 
and if some, why not all, by their example in word 
and work? 

We have every reason, then, to anticipate great 
changes within Christianity, because polity is in 
process of such profound alteration. The strain 
of society grows tenser and, with it, the temptation 
to treat the individual as a helpless means. Conse- 
quently, one must expect religion to invoke new 
powers calculated to convince latter-day men of 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 347 

the value of life, as in every case consecrated by the 
indwelling of the eternal. The polity demands 
sacrifice, and useless sacrifice apparently, more and 
more. If this subordination of the individual to a 
temporary, and therefore imperfect, universal can- 
not be justified by the spiritualization of the 'secular' 
group, then dissolution is as certain as sunrise. In 
the circumstances, the necessity for renewed and 
renewing development within Christianity becomes 
entirely obvious. 

Is a permanent expansion of polity possible, under 
the so-called ' law ' of evolution, except on a funda- 
mental basis of religious idealism? Sociological 
science leads us to conclude that it is in the highest 
degree unlikely. Even the founder of Positivism 
voiced this view with perfect candour. For, the 
pervasive unity, essential to the process (' the 
eternal arms' that support, as religion would phrase 
it), underlies mere separate individuals, and provides 
supersocial supports. If we are nonplussed to-day, 
it is because, lost amid a multitude of minor interests, 
we lose sight of this. Talleyrand was right when, 
consulted by Larevellere-Lepeaux about a remedy 
for the inefiiciency of sugar-water 'ethical culture,' 
he replied: "There is one plan you might at least 
try. I should recommend you to be crucified and to 



348 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

rise again the third day." Yes, the settings of 
civilization change, but human need of communion 
with an 'absolute' remains essentially the same. 
And, for this, Christianity must continue to provide, 
though with marked difference of emphasis, suited to 
the possibilities of assimilation. In brief, the details 
of life in a polity might well drive one to despair; 
nevertheless, man's staying power, that transmutes 
these details into significant and authoritative 
reality, evinces supersocial traits, shot forth from an 
upper dimension alone productive of thoroughgoing 
devotion. To unify the two, as need arises, con- 
stitutes the mission and the justification of religion — 
for us, Christianity. For the polity can be saved only 
by defensible belief in self — and this never existed 
without belief in "a divinity that shapes our ends." 
Religion elicits and instils the loyalty without which 
human experience, even in the superindividual 
realm of a polity, crumbles into transiency. Here 
we labour in the valley of blessing. The play of 
comedy in tragedy, the load of tragedy in comedy, 
intimate no less. 

The theoretical question, Is the 'absolute' 
element in Christianity in such process of change 
that it may be overpassed some day ? would carry 
us far afield. If we can only see why it should be 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 349 

asked, we shall have done something. On the face 
of it, the enquiry states a paradox, one that emerges 
from the paradoxical character of self-consciousness. 
Everybody admits that self-consciousness compasses 
but a fragment of ultimate truth as a whole. Yet, 
on the other hand, we ask helplessly, Where else shall 
we look for this very truth ? The microcosm of the 
universe, as reflected back by our experience, cannot 
be devoid of all reality in the last resort, so far as we 
are concerned. Something in self laughs at change, 
or the bare notion of unity becomes illusory. Never- 
theless, ''change and decay in all around I see," not 
least in self. Accordingly, the single solution would 
seem to be that, by the changes through which self 
passes, its inner unity reaches working immut- 
ability in measure. The old self, that seemed 'ab- 
solute,' finds itself overpassed in a new development, 
identical in nature, notwithstanding the interference 
of the process. The personal relations constitutive 
of originating manhood never alter their texture, if 
we have but skill to pierce their temporary envelope. 
Still, in expression, defect always seals or modifies 
them from period to period, and so they cannot but 
overpass this or that degree eventually. So, if the 
unity of God, unsullied by imperfection, fails of 
identity with any particular apparition of selfhood it 



350 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

results, therefore, that the indwelling of this unity 
with our souls, as it proceeds from less to more, 
must involve the possibility at least of such restate- 
ment of the Christian ' absolute ' that it may overpass 
itself, and still preserve its synthetic touch unim- 
paired. A human revelation, or none, is practicable 
among men. Thus, the revelation may be stable, 
on the side of the ultimate power implied, and 
transitional in its human media. It would savour 
of impiety, for example, to attribute virtue to God ; 
virtue ensues upon sin overcome. Yet sin plays an 
important part in Christianity, particularly in its 
conception of the relation between God and man. 
And theologians have often presented it as if it bore 
specifically upon actual alteration within the Divine 
nature. Now, this intimates no more than the double 
character of ordinary life. Blessed though we be, we 
still abide the question in the valley. Hence the par- 
adoxical problem before us teems with possibilities, be- 
cause, in the unavoidable circumstances, ambiguity 
besets Christianity. A couple of illustrations may suf- 
fice to show why, and to close our discussion. Neces- 
sarily, they are selected from theology. For, after 
all, the paradox deals with Christianity as formulated, 
that is, as ambiguous. There are Roman, Anglican, 
Lutheran, Reformed, Unitarian, and other theologies, 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 35 1 

for the reason that this or the other facet of religion 
may cease to shine, or may be the single luminous 
point. 

As we are discussing the ' absoluteness ' of ' Chris- 
tian truth/ suppose we select the doctrine of God as 
our first example. All believers will assent to the 
great Johannine declaration : " God is a spirit : 
and they that worship him must worship him in 
spirit and in truth." ^ But, then, no spirit exists 
without process, and process never occurs in vacuo. 
So, one part of the environment wherein the process 
proceeds may be, often is, mistaken for the whole. 
As a matter of fact, the self-poised oneness of God 
has shut out other coordinate revelations frequently. 
But with little warrant from the Master. In the 
most wonderful of the many wonderful passages 
containing the charter of Christianity,^ John makes 
Jesus teach the disciples how they, as men in a 
world of men, may escape this error. ''Neverthe- 
less I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you 
that I go away: for if I go not away, the Com- 
forter will not come unto you; but if I depart, 
I will send him unto you. ... I have yet many 
things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them 
now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, 
he will guide you into all truth." ^ The temporary 

^ John iv. 24. ^ John xiv-xvii. ^ John xvi. 7, 12-13. 



352 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

theophany, because in a human being, must needs 
pass, to be succeeded by a permanent and ubiqui- 
tous presence. For those who have not seen, as 
Jesus reaUzes, the reality of the Godhead will con- 
tinue to persist through the unbroken activity of the 
Holy Spirit. Accordingly, it is not too much to say 
that, when we have plumbed these marvellous in- 
sights to their depths, we may read our own situation 
in a new light, Here below, in our stage and state, 
the effective presence, wherein Father and Son alike 
may be discerned, and known concretely, belongs to 
"the Lord and Giver of Life." Moreover, the re- 
sultant supersession of many conventional doctrines 
about God may prove a necessary accompaniment of 
our transformed knowledge of self and the universe. 
Nay, it may be indispensable as a development pari 
passu with our growing appreciation of the structure 
and function of human society. In any event, we 
begin to cross-examine ourselves afresh concerning the 
society called the church. And we may well ask, Is 
a vital conception of the church attainable apart from 
such a view of the office of the Holy Spirit as I have 
indicated? As a churchman, I understand my soci- 
ety to be the superindividual community enlivened 
by the constant intercourse of the Holy Spirit. Fur- 
ther, I am unable to see that, under other conditions, 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 353 

we are justified in regarding it as the peculiar organ 
of religion. If its existence mean anything, it is 
this — that in it God is known of Himself. So far 
as broken human experience judges, superindividual 
power can appear only in relations of persons ; and 
they achieve personality, as we have seen, precisely 
by the transitive touch of that Eternal wherein, 
fairly enough, we may avow the Holy Spirit. But, 
then, this superindividual power attains its purest 
tension in a communal whole. "I am glorified in 
them^ Consequently, God, as the Holy Spirit, 
becomes the 'absolute,' not merely for us, but with us. 
Dominated, as we are, by the idea of development, 
it is not enough that we sense the superindividual 
in self ; we seek it also, and more richly, in the super- 
social, whereby a man is fortified unto the larger 
life. And this manifestation the church, as the 
subject of the Holy Spirit, ought to offer in unex- 
ampled degree. The greatest thinker of the nine- 
teenth century understood the position clearly: 
''finite consciousness knows God only to the ex- 
tent to which God knows Himself in it ; thus God 
is Spirit, the Spirit of His Church in fact, that is, 
of those who worship Him."^ 

Thus, while conserving the ' absolute ' in principle, 

^ Philosophy of Religion, Hegel, vol. ii, p. 327 (Eng. trans.). 
2 A 



354 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

it is quite possible that Christianity, quickened, as 
it must be, by the latest demands of Christian men, 
may overpass its venerable dogmas of the static, 
transcendent nature of Deity, and concentrate its 
insistence upon the operative process of the Holy 
Spirit, through the church, for the world. In this 
sense, it would liberate itself from a transient meth- 
odism, and proceed, as by a fresh burst of inspira- 
tion, to tell our epoch all things that ever it did. 
And many events are less likely than the establish- 
ment of ' Christian truth ' on this wise. 

Coming, now, to our second example, it is not 
impossible that our intellectual explanations of the 
immediate appearance of God in Jesus may be over- 
passed. Jesus was a man, born of the flesh under 
the law, and therefore finite in the same way as his 
brethren. He was subject to all physical necessities, 
and had human character no less than human frame. 
Hence, one of the ambiguities of Christianity attaches 
to the view, not uncommon in Christendom, that this 
particular finite contained the "whole fulness of the 
Godhead bodily." No doubt, the reason for such 
an interpretation is not far to seek. Ordinary un- 
derstanding, or common-sense, always leans upon 
the sensuous. Nay, some peoples, of eminent 
influence in the development of Christian thought, 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 355 

have been unable to rise above it, all in all. For 
example, it masters most Roman and Anglican 
reflexion. Now, thanks just to its sensuous basis, 
common-sense misses the implications of God-man- 
hood, by confining its attention to a single individual, 
as if this being, by some strange freak, alone enjoyed 
communion with the Eternal. It fails to observe that 
such a conclusion knocks the bottom out of religion. 
Jesus fell a victim to no such deception. He lived 
to do the Father's will. He manifested God to the 
utmost possible with men. For our sakes he became 
poor, and therefore drank the cup of sense to the lees. 
As a human experient, he served himself an incar- 
nation of one type of the divine process — the most 
real for us, be it said. Nevertheless, he was no 
statesman, or philosopher, or naturalist, or poet, or 
artist. These types of revelation must be sought 
elsewhere. Yet, he gave the decisive answer to the 
riddle of existence, not from God's, but from man's 
side. It was essential that the problem of the prac- 
ticable union between men and the Eternal should 
be made plain. In other words, stereotyped theories 
may be overpassed, if the stress of the Christian 
incarnation be shifted from the divine to the human 
factor. For our religion contains other truths, and, 
consequently, there is an obvious sense in which. 



356 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

on some readings of it, the incarnation may become 
a half truth. For, in Jesus, it was limited to time 
and place. That is, Jesus came to show, by his faith- 
fulness to death, what Christ might be. His person 
is unique, but so are all other persons. When it had 
passed away, and not till then, believers were able 
to refine the humane element, and seize upon the 
essential idea, which remains, as Christ, to witness 
the life eternal. 

To state the process — for it is a process — other- 
wise. You fathom Jesus just in proportion as you 
discern in him a normal and not an abnormal 
(thaumaturgic or pagan) apparition of the Eternal 
in human nature. He preferred no claim to stand 
in place of God. This broke forth, and inevitably, 
from the awakened consciousness of the disciples. 
In like manner, we contemporary disciples, through 
whom Christianity energizes now, derive the God- 
ideal from him. Jesus homo has long given place 
to Jesus salvator — Christ. Our need 'proves' the 
divinity of Christ, for our devotion, according to its 
ratio, evaporates the accidental and physical, leav- 
ing only the Divine Person. The adaptation of 
Christianity to man's necessity, and not the static 
unchangeable character of a Syrian peasant, embodies 
the benison. In Christ, human nature descries the 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 357 

way wherein it may walk, so transcending its own 
frailties as to arrive at renewed unity with the God 
Whom the world had lost nigh irrevocably. 

Thus Christianity preserves its 'absoluteness' in 
the sense that it remains impervious to attacks from 
without. And, if we could but realize the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made us free, we would imder- 
stand that there are no such things as attacks from 
within. For the complete truth of religion issues 
from its devotees, each building his little bit of the 
opulent whole according to his God-given power, or 
purity, or mental sweep. They keep it in process of 
constant enrichment and, on the contrary, such are 
their responsibilities, reduce it on occasion to the 
level of uninspired, even repellent, prose. On this 
wise it partakes of that change without which the 
vital presence of operative spiritual reality sinks to a 
flatulent verbalism. Be sure, 'Christian truth' en- 
visages a career, does not dictate a logical judge- 
ment. Accordingly, from generation to generation, 
this or that feature of the life glows in high light, 
while other traits lie in shadow — mayhap because 
they are overpassed. As Hegel saw, we must rise 
beyond knowledge to faith. "If we say nothing 
more of Christ than that He was a teacher of hu- 
manity, a martyr for the truth, we do not occupy 



358 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

the Christian standpoint, the standpoint of true 
religion." ^ Thus, paradoxically, it boots nothing 
to assert the exclusive presence of God in this or 
that man. ''The teaching of Christ taken by itself 
belongs to the world of ordinary figurative ideas only, 
and takes to do with the inner feeling and disposi- 
tion ; it is supplemented by the representation of the 
Divine Idea in His life and fate." ^ So, the static 
conception is left behind when we detect the eternal 
Christ in the man Jesus. The cross is the baptism 
of human consciousness into Christ. For those 
who have not seen, there is no Epiphany without 
Easter. We overpass the historical accidents and, 
piercing to the 'absolute' that makes them possible, 
retain it as 'absolute,' no matter in what fashion 
our historical accidents may persuade us to represent 
it most effectually to our hearts. The blessing abides 
one, but ever amid the chances of the valley. 

But all this brings us back full circle to the point 
of departure in the Introductory Lecture. There 
are intellectual constructions of belief necessary to 
* Christian truth,' and they alter with the flight of 

^ Philosophy of Religion, vol. iii, pp. 77-78 (Eng. trans.). 
2 Philosophy of Religion, Hegel, vol. iii, p. 85 (Eng. trans.). The 
italics are mine. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 359 

years. For instance, the clamant question to-day 
is not. What shall / do to be saved? The 'other 
world' keeps too closely with us for this. Modern 
thought refuses to endure a dual universe; Spirit 
is unseen Nature, Nature is unseen Spirit. In our 
present condition, we rather ask. What is the perfect 
society? And, to answer it, admitting the funda- 
mental postulates of religion as I have tried to sketch 
them, we cannot but travel beyond ancient tran- 
scripts, which become religious dangers when they 
erect barriers to every movement. But we fare forth 
thus in order to obtain closer walk with God. Christ 
rules, not the past, but our future, if we will to become, 
after our clearest vision, as He would have us be. 
It avails naught to imitate bygone thinkers, or even 
saints. The message gushes from our inward con- 
sciousness, to receive heed from us as we veritably 
are, or keeps the dead, decent level of a tale that is 
told. The cheering assurance, given by one of the 
several New Testament prophets who seemed to 
foresee our straits, possesses authority as pertinent 
to the twentieth century as to the distant day when 
it was set down first. "And all these, having ob- 
tained a good report through faith, received not the 
promise: God having provided some better thing 
for uSy that they without us should not be made 



360 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

perfect." ^ Life eternal is a present state, ours to 
take or leave. As Christians, we gain this certainty 
by adoption into Christ, Who has proven that self, 
in its ultimate reality, enjoys free course only when 
the Eternal power functioning within it transforms 
every fibre of its being. But, reverently be it said, 
even the Eternal can accomplish nothing unless we 
meet it more than halfway. 

Seen through the prism of intellect, as the tran- 
sient generations must see it, 'Christian truth' yet 
remains one in whiteness of simplicity. "I in them, 
and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in 
one." ^ That is all ! And, because all, capable of 
endless restatement, of multitudinous application. 
We support life in the Valley of Blessing, or curse 
it in the Valley of Hinnom, where the fair palm 
trees mark the smoke ascending from the door of 
Gehenna.^ Like other Christians, I cannot 'prove' 
these things, any more than I can 'prove' my own 
existence. But I am able to say humbly, / know. 
I am saluted by the discordant shouts of the old, 
old quarrel between the 'head' and the 'heart,' a 
duel destined to last with the human race. But 
the two could not disagree unless they belonged 

^ Hebrews xi. 39, 40. ^ John xvii. 23. 

5 Cf . City of the Great King, Barclay, p. 90. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 361 

together. Patience with the plea of each alone will 
set the door of truth ajar. For neither has reason 
to say to the other, "I have no need of thee." 
Thought, without emotion, never accomplished 
anything permanent; emotion, without thought, 
never escaped the young folly of self-love. Slight 
either, and you seek trouble; give heed to both, 
and, happily, you may begin to perceive that they 
prefer equal title to membership in an ampler whole. 
So, in these Lectures, I have let the *head' pursue 
its own course to the bitter end, only to find that, 
whatever the end, the * heart ' refuses to rest satisfied. 
For religion happens to be one thing, thought about 
religion a vastly different affair. Yet we are com- 
pelled to think about belief. Indeed, the practical 
character of Christianity requires to be brought 
home by some species of reflexion. Practice ' proves ' 
truth, but practice formulated by the ' head.' 

What else can we gather from the illustration with 
which I may be permitted to close? Let me lift 
the corner of a veil that men keep down generally, 
and you will see what I mean. If some poor souls, 
the bloom of youth still ruddy upon them, came to 
you, and confessed, with the awful shudder conveyed 
most faintly by physical gesture, 'We have been at 
the very gates of hell,' or, 'We have seen hell incar- 



362 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

nate,' you would know. Fortunately, or unfortu- 
nately, I have encountered this satanic work more 
than once and, like my boyhood friend, Henry 
Drummond, "have felt that I must go and change 
my very clothes after the contact." ^ Here we have 
another process, down, not up, but, in its subtle 
movement, identical essentially with the Christian 
ascent. For, "identical conditions produce the 
hero and the coward." ^ He who exclaims rashly, 
"Evil, be thou my good !" also senses the eternal in 
self, if to dire purpose. Now, ask the father of any 
vicious lad, the mother of any light girl, whether 
these things are true, whether they stand in need of 
* proof.' You will find that they know, alas! The 
power of creative emotion witnesses itself; and 
this power, at its tensest, patient to endure from day 
to day through the commonest worries of mortal 
chance, forms at once the supposition and the 
achievement of any 'Christian truth' worth the 
name. "Inward and spiritual grace" shines by 
its own light. It knows, yet is unable to explain, 
recognizing that explanations fail to satisfy the 
'head,' because, manifestly, they fail to compass 
the 'heart.' The one knows, but during a moment 

^ The Life of Henry Drummond, George Adam Smith, p. 11. 
^ The Gospel in the Gospels, W. P. Du Bose, p. 89. 



THE VALLEY OF BLESSING 363 

only, for, in the nature of the case, the other punc- 
tuates every proposition with discontent; and tlien 
a new effort at truth becomes inevitable. Fresh 
sheaves are fetched to the threshing floor daily, 
otherwise the kernel of ideal, eternal fact would go 
to powder, and lose its living essence amid the 
elusive, superficial chaff. But we, the latest har- 
vest, must supply new grain for sustenance and 
seeding, even if its value may not have been struck 
as yet. 

Nay more, on this threshing floor those who pul- 
sate with the sacrificial throb of the race hasten to take 
the shoes from off their feet, for the place whereon 
they stand is holy ground. Here the elemental 
human spirit has been released through ages, to 
live on at this moment an inherent part of the palpi- 
tating present reality. Here, for the Christian con- 
sciousness, the eternal Christ inhabits, a pervasive 
influence able to mould all souls to its translucent 
nature. Here men hang their picture of the Christ- 
type, the wistful shadow brooding on the face, be- 
cause He knows only too well that His brethren must 
continue in His sufferings till the world's end, so 
be they would achieve some vital share in His potent 
wholeness, and learn from it how to 

" Give consolation in this woe extreme/' 



364 MODERN THOUGHT AND THE CRISIS IN BELIEF 

wrought by the cold touch of the abstract intellect. 
Here the captains of our temporal strife meet 
martyrdom in their transitive personality. As for 
Him, so for them, 

"The age in which they live 
Will not forgive 

The splendour of the everlasting light 
That makes their foreheads bright, 
Nor the sublime forerunning of their time." 

The glorious unity wherein they are thus lost, to 
find their truest selves, seals the promise of that 
final consummation, the Kingdom of Heaven, now 
in the winning. So His creation striveth — creat- 
ing Him. And, if the mystics be few, the wand- 
bearers many, let us remember constantly that the 
few must receive from the many that human extract 
whence they distil their message of new hope, 
bringing the Christ near, because expressing His 
secret in contemporary language, moods, and as- 
pirations. 



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